Pilcomayo fire, 5 January 2022 Pilcomayo, Formosa, Pilagás
The fire started on 5 January 2022 in Pilcomayo, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 81,287 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 2 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.
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- Burnt area
- 81,287ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 29days
- 5 Jan 2022 – 2 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- departments
- Started on
- 5 Jan
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 3,249
- in a single hotspot: 356 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.9GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.7 mm on 3 Feb.
This area had burned before
51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,341 ha in 2016, 3,495 ha in 2017, 4,782 ha in 2018, 7,450 ha in 2019, 37,764 ha in 2020, 2,983 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 41,065 ha that had burned before.
- 3,322 ha Pilcomayo fire, April 2020 3,684 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,988 ha Formosa fire, February 2019 3,746 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,752 ha Formosa fire, October 2020 3,413 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,682 ha Formosa fire, September 2020 4,767 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,274 ha Pilcomayo fire, August 2020 2,941 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,884 ha Pilcomayo fire, March 2020 2,117 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,863 ha Formosa fire, March 2020 2,856 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,463 ha Pilcomayo fire, September 2018 1,525 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Pilcomayo where it started51,941 ha reached on 6 Jan9.7 %
-
28,364 ha reached on 5 Jan4.4 %
-
1,315 ha reached on 13 Jan0.4 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 5.6 hectares of built-up land and about 300 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Jan | 34.4 °C | 44 % | 46 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Jan | 33.9 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Jan | 35.5 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Jan | 36.4 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Jan | 35.4 °C | 39 % | 36 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Jan | 35.6 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 11 Jan | 37.2 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Jan | 38.9 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Jan | 38.1 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Jan | 37.8 °C | 34 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Jan | 39.1 °C | 31 % | 53 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Jan | 41.0 °C | 25 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 17 Jan | 41.5 °C | 24 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 18 Jan | 40.7 °C | 26 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 19 Jan | 39.8 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Jan | 38.9 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Jan | 39.8 °C | 29 % | 46 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Jan | 40.0 °C | 27 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 23 Jan | 41.1 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 46 |
| 24 Jan | 41.5 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Jan | 39.9 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Jan | 40.0 °C | 33 % | 43 km/h | 1.5 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Jan | 29.5 °C | 74 % | 34 km/h | 36.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 28 Jan | 32.1 °C | 44 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 29 Jan | 33.2 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 30 Jan | 35.4 °C | 30 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 31 Jan | 37.3 °C | 25 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Feb | 38.4 °C | 24 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Feb | 38.2 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Feb after | 36.1 °C | 43 % | 35 km/h | 14.7 mm | Low 6 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 3,249Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 23,802 haFormosa11 March 2024 · 11 days · 12 km away
- 4,767 haFormosaSeptember 2020 · 16 days · 12 km away
- 16,214 haPilcomayo10 March 2024 · 17 days · 25 km away
- 13,234 haPirané19 September 2020 · 20 days · 30 km away
- 12,890 haFormosa16 February 2026 · 7 days · 30 km away
- 9,799 haPilcomayo17 January 2022 · 16 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pilcomayo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 January 2022 to 2 February 2022 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 January 2022 to 26 January 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 81,287 hectares (812.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pilcomayo (51,941 ha, 9.7 %); Formosa (28,364 ha, 4.4 %); Pilagás (1,315 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.5 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 7 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 January 2022 to 26 January 2022. 3,249 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.
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.