Skip to content
worldfires
AR · Argentina · →

Pilcomayo fire, 8 January 2022 Pilcomayo

Out · last detection 19 Jan 2022, 05:22 UTC

The fire started on 8 January 2022 in Pilcomayo, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,616 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 63th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 68 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

Burnt area
5,616ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
8 Jan 2022 – 20 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
8 Jan
2022
Heat detections
192
in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jan20 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

89101112131416171819

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
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 26 Jan.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 35 ha in 2016, 664 ha in 2017, 1,220 ha in 2018, 289 ha in 2019, 2,788 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,665 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pilcomayo where it started
    5,650 ha reached on 7 Jan
    1.0 %

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)
8 Jan 35.8 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
9 Jan 34.7 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
10 Jan 35.5 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Jan 36.9 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Jan 38.7 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Jan 38.2 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Jan 37.6 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jan 38.8 °C 34 % 51 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 44
16 Jan 40.5 °C 26 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Jan 41.1 °C 24 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Jan 40.6 °C 26 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jan 40.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jan 38.5 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jan after 40.1 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
22 Jan after 40.0 °C 27 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Jan after 41.0 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jan after 41.4 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jan after 40.4 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Jan after 39.9 °C 33 % 41 km/h 1.2 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jan 2022
After · 27 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 · 192Every 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 8 January 2022 and 20 January 2022: 13 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 5,616 hectares (56.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pilcomayo (5,650 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % 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

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.