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General Taboada fire, September 2022 Juan F. Ibarra, General Taboada

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2022, 18:08 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2022 in General Taboada, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,923 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 52th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 161 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

Burnt area
2,923ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
14 Sept 2022 – 17 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
2
departments
Started on
14 Sept
2022
Heat detections
80
in a single hotspot: 371 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1415

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
55km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 18 Sept.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 650 ha in 2016, 1,995 ha in 2017, 1,274 ha in 2020, 313 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,608 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Juan F. Ibarra
    2,239 ha reached on 14 Sept
    0.2 %
  2. General Taboada where it started
    699 ha reached on 14 Sept
    0.1 %

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)
14 Sept 25.9 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Sept 27.6 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept 29.6 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Sept 33.5 °C 21 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Sept after 34.9 °C 26 % 58 km/h 1.1 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2022
After · 24 Sept 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 18 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak73 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM10104 µg/m³
Optical depth0.96
121314151617181920
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 80Every 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 14 September 2022 and 17 September 2022: 4 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 2,923 hectares (29.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Juan F. Ibarra (2,239 ha, 0.2 %); General Taboada (699 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, class Extreme.
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.