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Mitre fire, September 2022 Mitre

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2022, 05:18 UTC

The fire started on 23 September 2022 in Mitre, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,008 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 144th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 276 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,008ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
23 Sept 2022 – 27 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
23 Sept
2022
Heat detections
73
in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
248MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Sept27 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
53km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.1 mm on 5 Oct.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 240 ha in 2016, 446 ha in 2017, 206 ha in 2018, 1,581 ha in 2020, 209 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,644 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mitre where it started
    2,018 ha reached on 23 Sept
    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)
23 Sept 27.4 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Sept 28.2 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Sept 27.2 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Sept 28.4 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Sept 26.9 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Sept after 22.7 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Sept after 25.3 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Sept after 28.5 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Oct after 31.1 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Oct after 30.6 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Oct after 31.1 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Oct after 32.0 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Oct after 27.8 °C 27 % 60 km/h 7.1 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Sept 2022
After · 4 Oct 2022

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 26 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.32
21222324252627282930
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 · 73Every 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 23 September 2022 and 27 September 2022: 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 2,008 hectares (20.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitre (2,018 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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.