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AR · Argentina · –

Santo Tomé fire, 11 February 2022 Santo Tomé

Out · last detection 20 Feb 2022, 05:22 UTC

The fire started on 11 February 2022 in Santo Tomé, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 32,942 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Corrientes since 2016 (of 198 with a page). Number 7 in Argentina in 2022, of 441.

Burnt area
32,942ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
11 Feb 2022 – 20 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
11 Feb
2022
Heat detections
1,218
in a single hotspot: 545 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
2.7GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Feb20 Feb
20 Feb 2022

How it evolved, day by day

11 Feb 2022 · 2,086 MW · 86 12 Feb 2022 · 28 MW · 4 13 Feb 2022 · 345 MW · 32 14 Feb 2022 · 692 MW · 34 15 Feb 2022 · 4,570 MW · 193 16 Feb 2022 · 9,064 MW · 350 17 Feb 2022 · 6,593 MW · 316 18 Feb 2022 · 1,471 MW · 91 19 Feb 2022 · 2,254 MW · 84 20 Feb 2022 · 149 MW · 28
11 Feb 13 Feb 16 Feb 19 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

39°high
45km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 21 Feb.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 678 ha in 2016, 488 ha in 2017, 1,123 ha in 2018, 711 ha in 2019, 2,285 ha in 2020, 1,681 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,443 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 21% of the area of London (329 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
    33,012 ha reached on 11 Feb
    4.7 %

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 area1.5 ha
Residents≈ 90

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.5 hectares of built-up land and about 90 residents (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)
11 Feb 38.8 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Feb 32.8 °C 44 % 42 km/h 3.8 mm High 36
13 Feb 30.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 1.3 mm Low 6
14 Feb 33.2 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Feb 36.8 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Feb 39.1 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Feb 37.0 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Feb 37.2 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Feb 37.4 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Feb 35.5 °C 34 % 45 km/h 1.3 mm Extreme 59
21 Feb after 34.0 °C 40 % 28 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 12

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 50.1, a minimum humidity of 25% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 23.

FWI at the start 50.1
Minimum humidity 25 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Caapucu fire, September 2020
2,532 ha 8 days FWI 50.6 Min. humidity 24 % 234 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.0 mm on 8 Oct.

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
2,385 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 23 had it)

It was 13.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 10 days, against 4 days.

None of its 23 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. In 2 of 23, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.5 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

1.3 mmfirst rain
21 Febthe day after it ended
45km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 20 Feb, and on 21 Feb 1.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 23, with a median of 5.5 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 · 4 Feb 2022
After · 27 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 · 1,218Every 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 11 February 2022 and 20 February 2022: 10 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 32,942 hectares (329.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Santo Tomé (33,012 ha, 4.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.
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: 23. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 2,385 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 23 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. In 2 of 23, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.5 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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,218 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.