How long did the Itatí fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 March 2023 and 21 March 2023: 17 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 5,588 hectares (55.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Itatí (3,080 ha, 0.9 %); Berón de Astrada (2,524 ha, 3.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.

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.

AR · Argentina · 2023-03-05 → 2023-03-21

Itatí fire, 5 March 2023 Itatí, Berón de Astrada

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2023, 18:02 UTC

The fire started on 5 March 2023 in Itatí, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,588 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 33th largest in Corrientes since 2016 (of 203 with a page). Number 23 in Argentina in 2023, of 180.

Burnt area: 5,588ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 5 Mar 2023 – 21 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit: 2; departments
Started on: 5 Mar; 2023
Heat detections: 516; in a single hotspot: 324 MW
Danger at start: 6; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 5.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 21 Mar 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Mar21 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

56789101112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

33km/h · peak gust

32%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.8 mm on 24 Mar.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,058 ha in 2020, 593 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,418 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Itatí where it started

3,080 ha reached on 5 Mar

0.9 %
Berón de Astrada

2,524 ha reached on 6 Mar

3.0 %

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)
5 Mar	33.8 °C	40 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
6 Mar	32.7 °C	40 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
7 Mar	30.8 °C	49 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
8 Mar	32.8 °C	46 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
9 Mar	34.7 °C	50 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
10 Mar	34.2 °C	43 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
11 Mar	37.0 °C	32 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
12 Mar	35.8 °C	37 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
13 Mar	35.7 °C	41 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
14 Mar	32.2 °C	51 %	31 km/h	4.8 mm	Very low 3
15 Mar	30.6 °C	61 %	26 km/h	7.2 mm	Very low 1
16 Mar	30.2 °C	63 %	26 km/h	18.1 mm	Very low 0
17 Mar	32.7 °C	54 %	32 km/h	2.7 mm	Very low 1
18 Mar	34.6 °C	46 %	24 km/h	1.2 mm	Very low 3
19 Mar	35.6 °C	39 %	25 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 8
20 Mar	36.3 °C	33 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
21 Mar	35.4 °C	41 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 14
22 Mar after	35.2 °C	39 %	27 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 13
23 Mar after	35.7 °C	40 %	30 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 13
24 Mar after	34.0 °C	45 %	27 km/h	4.8 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Feb 2023

After · 28 Mar 2023

Before After

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 8 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10128 µg/m³

Optical depth0.72

WHO 15

3456789101112131415161718192021222324

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 · 516Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Argentina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Itatí fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 March 2023 and 21 March 2023: 17 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 5,588 hectares (55.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Itatí (3,080 ha, 0.9 %); Berón de Astrada (2,524 ha, 3.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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

Servicio Nacional de Manejo del Fuego ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned