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AR · Argentina · –

Ituzaingó fire, March 2023 Ituzaingó

Out · last detection 17 Mar 2023, 17:37 UTC

The fire started on 12 March 2023 in Ituzaingó, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,478 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Corrientes since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 23 in Argentina in 2023, of 179.

Burnt area
5,478ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
12 Mar 2023 – 17 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
12 Mar
2023
Heat detections
157
in a single hotspot: 155 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
420MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Mar17 Mar
17 Mar 2023

How it evolved, day by day

12 Mar 2023 · 461 MW · 6 13 Mar 2023 · 947 MW · 74 14 Mar 2023 · 683 MW · 75 15 Mar 2023 · 7 MW · 1 17 Mar 2023 · 4 MW · 1
12 Mar 13 Mar 14 Mar 15 Mar 17 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
38km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 22 Mar.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 27 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.5% of the area of London (55 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ituzaingó where it started
    5,484 ha reached on 12 Mar
    0.6 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.32 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.32 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
12 Mar 36.0 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Mar 36.5 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
14 Mar 30.6 °C 61 % 38 km/h 16.0 mm Moderate 12
15 Mar 29.4 °C 66 % 31 km/h 11.7 mm Very low 1
16 Mar 31.0 °C 61 % 34 km/h 11.2 mm Very low 1
17 Mar 32.4 °C 56 % 32 km/h 1.0 mm Very low 1
18 Mar after 34.6 °C 47 % 21 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 5
19 Mar after 35.4 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9
20 Mar after 36.0 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
21 Mar after 35.3 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
22 Mar after 34.9 °C 41 % 29 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 16

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 22.0, a minimum humidity of 35% and 7 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 16.

FWI at the start 22.0
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 7
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Berón de Astrada fire, March 2025
4,231 ha 8 days FWI 22.4 Min. humidity 33 % 107 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.5 mm on 26 Mar.

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
2,177 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 16 had it)

It was 2.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 6 days.

None of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.0 mmfirst rain
22 Mar5 days after it ended
38km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 17 Mar, and on 22 Mar 2.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 16, with a median of 4.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Mar 2023
After · 24 Mar 2023

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 13 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1050 µg/m³
Optical depth0.74
10 Mar12 Mar14 Mar16 Mar18 Mar
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 · 157Every 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 Ituzaingó fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 March 2023 to 17 March 2023 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 March 2023 to 15 March 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,478 hectares (54.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ituzaingó (5,484 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 16. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 2,177 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.6 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 15 March 2023 → 17 March 2023.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 March 2023 to 15 March 2023. 157 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.