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Orán fire, 21 October 2022 Orán, Ledesma

Out · last detection 28 Nov 2022, 05:53 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2022 in Orán, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 63,108 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Salta since 2016 (of 231 with a page). Number 4 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Orán · 2020Orán · 2020Ledesma · 2020Orán · 2020

Burnt area
63,108ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
38days
21 Oct 2022 – 27 Nov 2022
Municipalities hit
2
departments
Started on
21 Oct
2022
Heat detections
6,987
in a single hotspot: 541 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
1.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct27 Nov
28 Nov 2022

How it evolved, day by day

21 Oct 2022 · 10 MW · 3 22 Oct 2022 · 11 MW · 2 23 Oct 2022 · 16 MW · 2 24 Oct 2022 · 31 MW · 6 25 Oct 2022 · 160 MW · 27 26 Oct 2022 · 1,958 MW · 104 27 Oct 2022 · 1,517 MW · 116 28 Oct 2022 · 4,398 MW · 484 29 Oct 2022 · 3,272 MW · 425 30 Oct 2022 · 2,630 MW · 359 1 Nov 2022 · 931 MW · 99 2 Nov 2022 · 1,955 MW · 390 3 Nov 2022 · 1,670 MW · 418 4 Nov 2022 · 1,587 MW · 305 5 Nov 2022 · 1,081 MW · 265 6 Nov 2022 · 1,245 MW · 245 7 Nov 2022 · 2,946 MW · 399 8 Nov 2022 · 2,151 MW · 410 9 Nov 2022 · 1,163 MW · 331 10 Nov 2022 · 1,745 MW · 367 11 Nov 2022 · 455 MW · 91 12 Nov 2022 · 159 MW · 37 13 Nov 2022 · 3 MW · 1 14 Nov 2022 · 15 MW · 2 15 Nov 2022 · 419 MW · 52 16 Nov 2022 · 458 MW · 34 17 Nov 2022 · 2,200 MW · 195 18 Nov 2022 · 7,117 MW · 625 19 Nov 2022 · 8,083 MW · 567 20 Nov 2022 · 2,548 MW · 351 23 Nov 2022 · 90 MW · 3 24 Nov 2022 · 369 MW · 18 25 Nov 2022 · 505 MW · 45 26 Nov 2022 · 374 MW · 86 27 Nov 2022 · 348 MW · 94 28 Nov 2022 · 57 MW · 29
21 Oct 27 Oct 3 Nov 9 Nov 15 Nov 19 Nov 23 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
62km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.8 mm on 30 Nov.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,913 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 40% of the area of London (631 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Orán where it started
    58,334 ha reached on 21 Oct
    5.0 %
  2. Ledesma
    5,062 ha reached on 12 Nov
    1.7 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.80 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.80 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 Oct 33.3 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
22 Oct 33.9 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Oct 32.4 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Oct 36.5 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Oct 39.1 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Oct 40.0 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Oct 31.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Oct 36.4 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Oct 41.1 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Oct 40.6 °C 18 % 62 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 58
31 Oct 22.8 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
1 Nov 24.4 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Nov 27.0 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Nov 28.5 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Nov 30.8 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Nov 32.7 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Nov 34.2 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Nov 35.0 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Nov 35.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Nov 35.4 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Nov 36.6 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Nov 35.4 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Nov 39.0 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 44
13 Nov 32.3 °C 31 % 31 km/h 1.2 mm High 26
14 Nov 29.1 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
15 Nov 35.9 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Nov 36.4 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Nov 37.1 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Nov 38.5 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Nov 39.5 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Nov 36.7 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Nov 26.9 °C 50 % 49 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 15
22 Nov 28.6 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
23 Nov 36.6 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Nov 39.0 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Nov 38.1 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Nov 38.6 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Nov 39.3 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Nov after 38.6 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Nov after 36.8 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 46
30 Nov after 35.2 °C 27 % 38 km/h 11.8 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Oct 2022
After · 4 Dec 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 28 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 274 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 133: 8.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak274 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM10391 µg/m³
Optical depth3.07
192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 6,987Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 October 2022 to 27 November 2022 (38 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 October 2022 to 20 November 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 63,108 hectares (631.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Orán (58,334 ha, 5.0 %); Ledesma (5,062 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 20 November 2022 → 27 November 2022.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 October 2022 to 20 November 2022. 6,987 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.