Pilcomayo fire, 4 September 2022 Pilcomayo
The fire started on 4 September 2022 in Pilcomayo, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,361 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 269th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 223 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,361ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 4 Sept 2022 – 6 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- departments
- Started on
- 4 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 74
- in a single hotspot: 103 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 462MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,657 ha in 2016, 744 ha in 2017, 140 ha in 2018, 1,952 ha in 2019, 1,229 ha in 2020, 44 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,268 ha that had burned before.
- 1,267 ha Pilcomayo fire, October 2019 3,685 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 963 ha Pilcomayo fire, August 2016 2,897 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 274 ha Pilcomayo fire, April 2020 7,194 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 141 ha Pilcomayo fire, August 2019 3,167 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 44 ha Pilcomayo fire, September 2021 1,825 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 started2,365 ha reached on 4 Sept0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Sept | 19.4 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 5 Sept | 22.2 °C | 39 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 6 Sept | 26.8 °C | 37 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 7 Sept after | 30.5 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Sept after | 38.1 °C | 24 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 9 Sept after | 27.6 °C | 46 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Sept after | 20.6 °C | 29 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Sept after | 24.6 °C | 29 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Sept after | 27.1 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Sept after | 26.2 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 14 Sept after | 25.6 °C | 29 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Sept after | 26.3 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 9 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 89 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 74Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,194 haPilcomayo25 April 2020 · 6 days · 3 km away
- 9,362 haPilcomayo25 March 2024 · 7 days · 17 km away
- 11,844 haPilcomayo22 September 2020 · 21 days · 27 km away
- 9,463 haJosé Falcón26 September 2020 · 7 days · 30 km away
- 8,739 haJosé Falcón25 August 2020 · 8 days · 31 km away
- 57,934 haJosé Falcón26 September 2020 · 17 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pilcomayo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2022 and 6 September 2022: 3 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 2,361 hectares (23.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pilcomayo (2,365 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.8 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- 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
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. 74 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.
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.