Mitre fire, August 2024 Mitre
The fire started on 26 August 2024 in Mitre, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,730 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 218th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 104 in Argentina in 2024, of 141.
- Burnt area
- 1,730ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 26 Aug 2024 – 27 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- departments
- Started on
- 26 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 56
- in a single hotspot: 136 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 629MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.9 mm on 30 Aug.
This area had burned before
48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 37 ha in 2016, 4 ha in 2017, 242 ha in 2020, 627 ha in 2021, 325 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 823 ha that had burned before.
- 185 ha Mitre fire, February 2020 1,996 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 173 ha Mitre fire, September 2022 2,008 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 37 ha Mitre fire, March 2016 1,932 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mitre where it started1,739 ha reached on 26 Aug0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Aug | 23.5 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Aug | 24.2 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 28 Aug after | 26.0 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 29 Aug after | 25.4 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Aug after | 19.4 °C | 50 % | 44 km/h | 8.9 mm | Very low 4 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 28 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 56Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,110 haRivadaviaSeptember 2022 · 3 days · 24 km away
- 11,699 haRivadaviaMarch 2018 · 9 days · 27 km away
- 5,816 haRivadaviaAugust 2018 · 3 days · 27 km away
- 5,797 haRivadaviaMay 2021 · 4 days · 31 km away
- 4,989 haRivadavia19 July 2025 · 3 days · 33 km away
- 6,886 haRivadavia26 July 2020 · 5 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mitre fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2024 and 27 August 2024: 2 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 1,730 hectares (17.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mitre (1,739 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 24.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.
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
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.