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Pirané fire, 14 January 2022 Pirané

Out · last detection 17 Jan 2022, 18:26 UTC

The fire started on 14 January 2022 in Pirané, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,897 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 183th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 167 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

Burnt area
2,897ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
14 Jan 2022 – 17 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
14 Jan
2022
Heat detections
174
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jan17 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

14151617

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
66km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 26.4 mm on 27 Jan.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2018, 361 ha in 2019, 3,080 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,094 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pirané where it started
    2,909 ha reached on 14 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
14 Jan 37.5 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jan 38.6 °C 31 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jan 40.7 °C 26 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jan 41.3 °C 24 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Jan after 40.0 °C 28 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Jan after 39.0 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
20 Jan after 38.6 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm High 34
21 Jan after 39.1 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
22 Jan after 39.5 °C 30 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jan after 40.4 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
24 Jan after 40.5 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jan after 39.8 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jan after 38.7 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 41
27 Jan after 28.2 °C 70 % 39 km/h 26.4 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jan 2022
After · 24 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 · 174Every 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 Pirané fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 January 2022 and 17 January 2022: 4 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 2,897 hectares (29.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pirané (2,909 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 66 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.