Punilla fire, September 2024 Punilla, Totoral, Ischilín
The fire started on 19 September 2024 in Punilla, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 49,705 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Córdoba since 2016 (of 95 with a page). The largest in Argentina in 2024, of 141.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 49,705ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 19 Sept 2024 – 2 Oct 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- departments
- Started on
- 19 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 2,361
- in a single hotspot: 333 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 3.5GW
- 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 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 30.3 mm on 7 Oct.
This area had burned before
31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,698 ha in 2017, 492 ha in 2019, 14,031 ha in 2020, 206 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,363 ha that had burned before.
- 7,656 ha Punilla fire, October 2020 11,497 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,747 ha Ischilín fire, August 2020 18,803 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,698 ha Colón fire, November 2017 3,508 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 459 ha Punilla fire, September 2019 2,637 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 206 ha Punilla fire, October 2022 1,544 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
-
Punilla where it started24,343 ha reached on 19 Sept9.8 %
-
10,844 ha reached on 21 Sept3.5 %
-
9,101 ha reached on 23 Sept1.8 %
-
5,331 ha reached on 21 Sept2.3 %
-
196 ha reached on 23 Sept0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 43 hectares of built-up land and about 1,300 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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 | 27.2 °C | 7 % | 71 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 20 Sept | 19.9 °C | 18 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Sept | 26.2 °C | 37 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Sept | 27.2 °C | 20 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Sept | 21.5 °C | 20 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Sept | 22.8 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Sept | 19.5 °C | 42 % | 59 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 30 |
| 26 Sept | 17.7 °C | 28 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Sept | 21.1 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Sept | 27.0 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Sept | 29.4 °C | 21 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Sept | 32.5 °C | 12 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Oct | 19.5 °C | 26 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 2 Oct | 18.8 °C | 20 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 3 Oct after | 19.7 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Oct after | 23.3 °C | 21 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 5 Oct after | 27.1 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Oct after | 25.1 °C | 31 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Oct after | 18.4 °C | 43 % | 46 km/h | 30.3 mm | Very low 1 |
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 24 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 160 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 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 · 2,361Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,497 haPunillaOctober 2020 · 4 days · 6 km away
- 18,803 haIschilín20 August 2020 · 9 days · 19 km away
- 6,710 haPunillaSeptember 2022 · 5 days · 20 km away
- 8,721 haIschilín15 August 2020 · 7 days · 24 km away
- 11,011 haPunilla22 September 2020 · 11 days · 25 km away
- 4,317 haPunillaSeptember 2017 · 3 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Punilla fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 September 2024 to 2 October 2024 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 September 2024 to 25 September 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 49,705 hectares (497.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Punilla (24,343 ha, 9.8 %); Totoral (10,844 ha, 3.5 %); Ischilín (9,101 ha, 1.8 %); Colón (5,331 ha, 2.3 %); Cruz del Eje (196 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 25 September 2024 → 2 October 2024.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 September 2024 to 25 September 2024. 2,361 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 2025, 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.