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Mitre fire, March 2016 Mitre

Out · last detection 16 Mar 2016, 18:20 UTC

The fire started on 13 March 2016 in Mitre, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,932 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 167th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 164 in Argentina in 2016, of 255.

Burnt area
1,932ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
13 Mar 2016 – 17 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
13 Mar
2016
Heat detections
85
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Energy released
483MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Mar17 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

13141516

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
57km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 22.7 mm on 18 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mitre where it started
    1,941 ha reached on 13 Mar
    0.6 %

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)
13 Mar 29.1 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
14 Mar 30.7 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
15 Mar 33.2 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
16 Mar 35.3 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
17 Mar 37.1 °C 38 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
18 Mar after 31.3 °C 52 % 64 km/h 22.7 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Mar 2016
After · 24 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 · 85Every 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 Mitre fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 March 2016 and 17 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 1,932 hectares (19.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitre (1,941 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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

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.