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Pilcomayo fire, 7 January 2022 Pilcomayo

Out · last detection 17 Jan 2022, 16:46 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2022 in Pilcomayo, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,129 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 163th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 148 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

Burnt area
3,129ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
7 Jan 2022 – 16 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
7 Jan
2022
Heat detections
132
in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan16 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213141617

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
64km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 26 Jan.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 510 ha in 2016, 1,249 ha in 2017, 22 ha in 2019, 7,067 ha in 2020, 110 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,044 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pilcomayo where it started
    3,138 ha reached on 7 Jan
    0.6 %

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)
7 Jan 35.2 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
8 Jan 36.0 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
9 Jan 34.7 °C 41 % 35 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Jan 35.4 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
11 Jan 37.0 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Jan 38.5 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Jan 38.1 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jan 37.6 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jan 39.1 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
16 Jan 40.8 °C 26 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Jan after 41.4 °C 24 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jan after 40.8 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jan after 39.9 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jan after 38.5 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
21 Jan after 39.7 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
22 Jan after 40.0 °C 26 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Jan after 41.2 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Jan after 41.6 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jan after 40.2 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jan after 40.1 °C 32 % 41 km/h 1.6 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Dec 2021
After · 23 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 · 132Every 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 Pilcomayo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 January 2022 and 16 January 2022: 10 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 3,129 hectares (31.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pilcomayo (3,138 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 64 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.