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PY · Paraguay · –

Mariscal Estigarribia fire, March 2016 Mariscal Estigarribia

Out · last detection 19 Mar 2016, 04:57 UTC

The fire started on 15 March 2016 in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,543 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 64th largest in Boquerón since 2016 (of 262 with a page). Number 32 in Paraguay in 2016, of 124.

Burnt area
2,543ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
15 Mar 2016 – 19 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Mar
2016
Heat detections
180
in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
369MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Mar19 Mar
19 Mar 2016

How it evolved, day by day

15 Mar 2016 · 340 MW · 25 16 Mar 2016 · 329 MW · 40 17 Mar 2016 · 935 MW · 69 18 Mar 2016 · 212 MW · 39 19 Mar 2016 · 29 MW · 7
15 Mar 16 Mar 17 Mar 18 Mar 19 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

40°high
54km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 23 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (25 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. Mariscal Estigarribia where it started
    2,559 ha reached on 15 Mar
    0.0 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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.

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)
15 Mar 36.7 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Mar 37.2 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
17 Mar 38.9 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Mar 40.0 °C 26 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Mar 29.8 °C 53 % 39 km/h 7.4 mm Very low 2
20 Mar after 27.3 °C 58 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 4
21 Mar after 22.9 °C 71 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 4
22 Mar after 27.8 °C 57 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
23 Mar after 26.1 °C 65 % 17 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 2

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 13.9, a minimum humidity of 30% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 23.

FWI at the start 13.9
Minimum humidity 30 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mariscal Estigarribia fire, December 2020
1,828 ha 2 days FWI 13.6 Min. humidity 30 % 21 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 11.3 mm on 25 Dec.

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
1,828 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
7.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 23 of 23 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,543 ha against a median of 1,828 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 6 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.4 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

1.3 mmfirst rain
23 Mar4 days after it ended
54km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Mar, and on 23 Mar 1.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 23 of 23, with a median of 7.4 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 · 8 Mar 2016
After · 26 Mar 2016

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 · 180Every 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 Paraguay

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mariscal Estigarribia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 March 2016 and 19 March 2016: 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 2,543 hectares (25.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mariscal Estigarribia (2,559 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Paraguay (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: 23. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 1,828 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.4 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: 132 · 911 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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 132 · 911.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 180 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 2015, 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 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.