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AR · Argentina · –

Patiño fire, 12 January 2022 Patiño

Out · last detection 13 Jan 2022, 18:02 UTC

The fire started on 12 January 2022 in Patiño, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,131 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 312th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 587 with a page). Number 258 in Argentina in 2022, of 441.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.6 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
2,131ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
12 Jan 2022 – 13 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
12 Jan
2022
Heat detections
85
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
120MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jan13 Jan
13 Jan 2022

How it evolved, day by day

12 Jan 2022 · 37 MW · 5 13 Jan 2022 · 203 MW · 80
12 Jan 13 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
27km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 182 ha in 2017, 4,769 ha in 2019, 163 ha in 2020, 346 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,117 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (21 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. Patiño where it started
    2,138 ha reached on 12 Jan
    0.1 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
12 Jan 38.7 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Jan 39.9 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Jan after 37.8 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jan after 38.3 °C 32 % 58 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
16 Jan after 40.8 °C 27 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jan after 41.5 °C 25 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Jan after 38.8 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Jan after 38.1 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
20 Jan after 38.7 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
21 Jan after 38.8 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jan after 39.5 °C 29 % 62 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 53
23 Jan after 40.2 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 43

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 34.2, a minimum humidity of 23% and 29 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 23.

FWI at the start 34.2
Minimum humidity 23 %
Days without rain 29
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Almirante Brown fire, August 2019
2,247 ha 4 days FWI 34.1 Min. humidity 26 % 127 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.3 mm on 31 Aug.

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
2,073 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.3 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 23 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,131 ha against a median of 2,073 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 6 days.

In 2 of 23, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.3 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
27km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 Jan, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 23, with a median of 4.3 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jan 2022
After · 20 Jan 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.

Detections table · 85Every 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 Patiño fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 January 2022 and 13 January 2022: 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 2,131 hectares (21.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Patiño (2,138 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 23. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 2,073 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 23, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.3 mm.

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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 85 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.