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AR · Argentina · –

Santo Tomé fire, 31 January 2022 Santo Tomé, Ituzaingó

Out · last detection 3 Feb 2022, 16:26 UTC

The fire started on 31 January 2022 in Santo Tomé, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,927 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 10th largest in Corrientes since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 17 in Argentina in 2022, of 441.

Burnt area
12,927ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
31 Jan 2022 – 3 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
2
departments
Started on
31 Jan
2022
Heat detections
416
in a single hotspot: 328 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.8GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jan3 Feb
3 Feb 2022

How it evolved, day by day

31 Jan 2022 · 4,251 MW · 78 1 Feb 2022 · 1,234 MW · 129 2 Feb 2022 · 1,651 MW · 166 3 Feb 2022 · 258 MW · 43
31 Jan 1 Feb 2 Feb 3 Feb

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
43km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 4 Feb.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 477 ha in 2018, 643 ha in 2019, 3,639 ha in 2020, 38 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,874 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.2% of the area of London (129 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

  1. Santo Tomé where it started
    9,274 ha reached on 31 Jan
    1.3 %
  2. 3,674 ha reached on 31 Jan
    0.4 %

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 area0.33 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.33 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)
31 Jan 37.2 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Feb 39.8 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Feb 40.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Feb 35.7 °C 33 % 43 km/h 7.5 mm Low 9
4 Feb after 33.8 °C 52 % 31 km/h 3.1 mm Low 5

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 42.6, a minimum humidity of 18% and 22 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 16.

FWI at the start 42.6
Minimum humidity 18 %
Days without rain 22
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ituzaingó fire, February 2022
1,572 ha 2 days FWI 39.1 Min. humidity 18 % 39 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 20 Feb.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
1,852 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 16 had it)

It was 7.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 4 days, against 5 days.

Only 1 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 1.8 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

3.1 mmfirst rain
4 Febthe day after it ended
43km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 3 Feb, and on 4 Feb 3.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 16, with a median of 1.8 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jan 2022
After · 10 Feb 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 · 416Every 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 Santo Tomé fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 January 2022 and 3 February 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 12,927 hectares (129.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Santo Tomé (9,274 ha, 1.3 %); Ituzaingó (3,674 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 16. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 1,852 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 1 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 1.8 mm.

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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 416 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.