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General Taboada fire, December 2021 General Taboada

Out · last detection 1 Jan 2022, 18:26 UTC

The fire started on 28 December 2021 in General Taboada, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,587 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 276th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 199 in Argentina in 2021, of 217.

Burnt area
1,587ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
28 Dec 2021 – 1 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
28 Dec
2021
Heat detections
52
in a single hotspot: 177 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Dec1 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

29301

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

42°high
55km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 208 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. General Taboada where it started
    1,590 ha reached on 29 Dec
    0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
28 Dec 38.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Dec 39.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Dec 41.3 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Dec 40.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Jan 41.7 °C 25 % 55 km/h 1.4 mm High 36
2 Jan after 38.0 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
3 Jan after 38.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Jan after 37.8 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
5 Jan after 34.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Jan after 33.7 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Jan after 35.3 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Jan after 36.4 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Jan after 38.7 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Jan after 38.9 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Jan after 40.3 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 21 Dec 2021
After · 8 Jan 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 52Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Argentina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the General Taboada fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 December 2021 and 1 January 2022: 5 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,587 hectares (15.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered General Taboada (1,590 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Argentina (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 911 · 100

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 911 · 100.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.