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Orán fire, December 2022 Orán

Out · last detection 10 Dec 2022, 05:28 UTC

The fire started on 3 December 2022 in Orán, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,815 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 71th largest in Salta since 2016 (of 231 with a page). Number 177 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

Burnt area
2,815ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
3 Dec 2022 – 10 Dec 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
3 Dec
2022
Heat detections
95
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Dec 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Dec10 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

3456710

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

The weather it burned in

44°high
47km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.4 mm on 11 Dec.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Orán where it started
    2,821 ha reached on 3 Dec
    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)
3 Dec 36.0 °C 21 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
4 Dec 38.8 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Dec 39.6 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Dec 42.1 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Dec 43.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Dec 44.2 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Dec 42.4 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
10 Dec 40.1 °C 28 % 47 km/h 14.7 mm Low 11
11 Dec after 32.9 °C 56 % 24 km/h 7.4 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Nov 2022
After · 17 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 11 December 2022 the air beside the fire reached 78 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak78 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10111 µg/m³
Optical depth1.22
12345678910111213
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 · 95Every 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 3 December 2022 and 10 December 2022: 8 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 2,815 hectares (28.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Orán (2,821 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 44.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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
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.