Skip to content
worldfires
AR · Argentina · →

Guatraché fire, January 2017 Guatraché

Out · last detection 4 Jan 2017, 18:05 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2017 in Guatraché, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,981 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in La Pampa since 2016 (of 190 with a page). Number 30 in Argentina in 2017, of 256.

Burnt area
6,981ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
1 Jan 2017 – 3 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
1 Jan
2017
Heat detections
284
in a single hotspot: 318 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
9.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan3 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1234

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
54km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.9 mm on 8 Jan.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Guatraché where it started
    7,001 ha reached on 1 Jan
    2.0 %

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)
1 Jan 30.4 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Jan 33.4 °C 28 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Jan 29.2 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
4 Jan after 28.7 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Jan after 24.6 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Jan after 33.3 °C 37 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Jan after 34.0 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
8 Jan after 31.4 °C 32 % 55 km/h 7.9 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Dec 2016
After · 10 Jan 2017

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 · 284Every 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 Guatraché fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 January 2017 and 3 January 2017: 3 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 6,981 hectares (69.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Guatraché (7,001 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.