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Orán fire, August 2022 Orán

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2022, 05:16 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2022 in Orán, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,181 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 108th largest in Salta since 2016 (of 231 with a page). Number 242 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

Burnt area
2,181ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
21 Aug 2022 – 26 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
21 Aug
2022
Heat detections
137
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
33km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 763 ha in 2016, 980 ha in 2018, 2,816 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,142 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Orán where it started
    2,192 ha reached on 20 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
21 Aug 24.5 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug 25.1 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug 29.0 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug 33.0 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug 34.4 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug 35.4 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Aug after 38.4 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Aug after 24.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug after 22.0 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug after 24.3 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Aug after 29.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept after 35.1 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept after 23.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Sept after 21.4 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Sept after 25.3 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Sept after 28.1 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Aug 2022
After · 2 Sept 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 22 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1088 µg/m³
Optical depth0.69
1920212223242526272829
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 · 137Every 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 Orán fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 August 2022 and 26 August 2022: 6 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 2,181 hectares (21.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Orán (2,192 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.