Skip to content
worldfires
AR · Argentina · →

Orán fire, 4 September 2022 Orán

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2022, 18:34 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2022 in Orán, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,996 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Salta since 2016 (of 231 with a page). Number 38 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.6 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
7,996ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
4 Sept 2022 – 19 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
4 Sept
2022
Heat detections
711
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
38km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 98 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Orán where it started
    8,025 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
4 Sept 24.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Sept 27.5 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 29.9 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Sept 31.3 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept 37.9 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 24.8 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Sept 23.5 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Sept 25.2 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Sept 27.9 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Sept 27.6 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Sept 25.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept 28.0 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Sept 30.7 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Sept 32.0 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept 37.2 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Sept 29.4 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
20 Sept after 22.7 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
21 Sept after 22.5 °C 49 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
22 Sept after 22.8 °C 32 % 31 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2022
After · 26 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 9 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 87 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak87 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM10124 µg/m³
Optical depth0.89
2345678910111213141516171819202122
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 · 711Every 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 4 September 2022 and 19 September 2022: 16 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 7,996 hectares (80.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Orán (8,025 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.