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Pirané fire, 7 February 2022 Pirané

Out · last detection 27 Feb 2022, 17:17 UTC

The fire started on 7 February 2022 in Pirané, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,882 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 72th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 81 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

Burnt area
4,882ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
7 Feb 2022 – 27 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
7 Feb
2022
Heat detections
208
in a single hotspot: 137 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Feb 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Feb27 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

791011131415161718192223242527

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
53km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 28 Feb.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,088 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,123 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pirané where it started
    4,887 ha reached on 6 Feb
    0.6 %

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)
7 Feb 30.6 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
8 Feb 32.5 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
9 Feb 33.6 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
10 Feb 35.5 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
11 Feb 36.8 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Feb 30.0 °C 57 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
13 Feb 29.4 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
14 Feb 33.2 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Feb 36.2 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Feb 38.4 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Feb 32.8 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Feb 36.4 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
19 Feb 36.9 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 Feb 30.7 °C 54 % 41 km/h 6.3 mm Very low 4
21 Feb 28.6 °C 66 % 34 km/h 14.7 mm Very low 0
22 Feb 34.0 °C 51 % 24 km/h 6.9 mm Very low 1
23 Feb 35.9 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
24 Feb 37.4 °C 43 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 12
25 Feb 35.9 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
26 Feb 37.9 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
27 Feb 39.5 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Feb after 38.0 °C 44 % 48 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jan 2022
After · 6 Mar 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 · 208Every 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 7 February 2022 and 27 February 2022: 21 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 4,882 hectares (48.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pirané (4,887 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class High.
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.