How long did the Pirané fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 September 2020 to 8 October 2020 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 September 2020 to 2 October 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,234 hectares (132.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Pilcomayo (9,607 ha, 1.8 %); Pirané (2,805 ha, 0.3 %); Formosa (851 ha, 0.1 %); Pilagás (32 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 44.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 76 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 83, class Very 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.

AR · Argentina · 2020-09-19 → 2020-10-08

Pirané fire, 19 September 2020 Pilcomayo, Pirané, Formosa

Out · last detection 8 Oct 2020, 17:23 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2020 in Pirané, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,234 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 17 in Argentina in 2020, of 671.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pilcomayo · 2022 Pilcomayo · 2024 Formosa · 2026 Pilagás · 2022

Burnt area: 13,234ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 20days; 19 Sept 2020 – 8 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit: 4; departments
Started on: 19 Sept; 2020
Heat detections: 679; in a single hotspot: 263 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.1GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept8 Oct

Play back 8 Oct 2020

How it evolved, day by day

19 Sept 23 Sept 26 Sept 29 Sept 1 Oct 2 Oct 7 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

44°high

76km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 13 Oct.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 951 ha in 2016, 881 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,242 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.4% of the area of London (132 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

Pilcomayo

9,607 ha reached on 21 Sept

1.8 %
Pirané where it started

2,805 ha reached on 19 Sept

0.3 %
Formosa

851 ha reached on 29 Sept

0.1 %
Pilagás

32 ha reached on 21 Sept

0.0 %

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 area0.36 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.36 hectares of 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)
19 Sept	30.6 °C	33 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
20 Sept	22.4 °C	29 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Sept	23.6 °C	26 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
22 Sept	29.3 °C	18 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
23 Sept	34.1 °C	30 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
24 Sept	37.2 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
25 Sept	41.0 °C	18 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
26 Sept	42.5 °C	18 %	72 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
27 Sept	33.5 °C	39 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
28 Sept	28.0 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 Sept	37.5 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Sept	43.0 °C	17 %	76 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 70
1 Oct	44.3 °C	13 %	76 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 83
2 Oct	37.6 °C	27 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
3 Oct	24.4 °C	49 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Oct	26.7 °C	44 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Oct	24.5 °C	42 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
6 Oct	29.5 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
7 Oct	35.0 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
8 Oct	36.2 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.9 mm	High 37
9 Oct after	29.7 °C	37 %	48 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 39
10 Oct after	33.5 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Oct after	36.3 °C	17 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
12 Oct after	36.8 °C	21 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
13 Oct after	32.8 °C	33 %	38 km/h	2.3 mm	High 24

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Sept 2020

After · 15 Oct 2020

Before After

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 · 679Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Argentina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pirané fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 September 2020 to 8 October 2020 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 September 2020 to 2 October 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,234 hectares (132.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Pilcomayo (9,607 ha, 1.8 %); Pirané (2,805 ha, 0.3 %); Formosa (851 ha, 0.1 %); Pilagás (32 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 44.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 76 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 83, class Very 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 ›

Servicio Nacional de Manejo del Fuego ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 September 2020 to 2 October 2020. 679 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.

Where it burned