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Sauce fire, December 2022 Sauce, Esquina

Out · last detection 20 Jan 2023, 18:26 UTC

The fire started on 13 December 2022 in Sauce, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,263 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Corrientes since 2016 (of 203 with a page). Number 20 in Argentina in 2022, of 442.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sauce · 2022Sauce · 2024Curuzú Cuatiá · 2025Esquina · 2020

Burnt area
11,263ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
39days
13 Dec 2022 – 20 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
2
departments
Started on
13 Dec
2022
Heat detections
1,505
in a single hotspot: 195 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Average daily power
529MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Dec20 Jan
20 Jan 2023

How it evolved, day by day

13 Dec 2022 · 52 MW · 6 14 Dec 2022 · 2 MW · 2 15 Dec 2022 · 127 MW · 5 16 Dec 2022 · 469 MW · 13 17 Dec 2022 · 10 MW · 9 18 Dec 2022 · 136 MW · 10 19 Dec 2022 · 7 MW · 1 20 Dec 2022 · 285 MW · 27 21 Dec 2022 · 250 MW · 27 22 Dec 2022 · 91 MW · 4 23 Dec 2022 · 411 MW · 10 24 Dec 2022 · 128 MW · 3 25 Dec 2022 · 61 MW · 16 26 Dec 2022 · 521 MW · 32 27 Dec 2022 · 27 MW · 27 28 Dec 2022 · 310 MW · 13 29 Dec 2022 · 1,951 MW · 93 30 Dec 2022 · 2,640 MW · 147 31 Dec 2022 · 3,067 MW · 136 1 Jan 2023 · 188 MW · 88 2 Jan 2023 · 40 MW · 3 3 Jan 2023 · 107 MW · 16 4 Jan 2023 · 1,582 MW · 123 5 Jan 2023 · 898 MW · 80 6 Jan 2023 · 592 MW · 76 7 Jan 2023 · 605 MW · 93 8 Jan 2023 · 796 MW · 87 9 Jan 2023 · 300 MW · 43 10 Jan 2023 · 714 MW · 32 11 Jan 2023 · 1,387 MW · 86 12 Jan 2023 · 39 MW · 12 14 Jan 2023 · 9 MW · 1 15 Jan 2023 · 767 MW · 35 16 Jan 2023 · 26 MW · 11 17 Jan 2023 · 947 MW · 76 18 Jan 2023 · 271 MW · 32 19 Jan 2023 · 23 MW · 8 20 Jan 2023 · 279 MW · 22
13 Dec 19 Dec 25 Dec 31 Dec 6 Jan 12 Jan 19 Jan

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
45km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.2 mm on 21 Jan.

This area had burned before

26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2020, 2,963 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.1% of the area of London (113 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. Sauce where it started
    6,332 ha reached on 13 Dec
    2.5 %
  2. Esquina
    4,954 ha reached on 14 Dec
    1.3 %

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 area0.41 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.41 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)
13 Dec 32.7 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Dec 34.9 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Dec 33.3 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Dec 31.1 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Dec 27.0 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Dec 32.5 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Dec 34.6 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Dec 34.9 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Dec 36.1 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Dec 37.0 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
23 Dec 36.2 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
24 Dec 31.9 °C 55 % 41 km/h 5.5 mm Very low 5
25 Dec 29.9 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
26 Dec 30.6 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
27 Dec 24.0 °C 47 % 28 km/h 8.9 mm Very low 1
28 Dec 32.2 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
29 Dec 34.0 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Dec 37.0 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
31 Dec 39.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Jan 36.9 °C 34 % 45 km/h 24.8 mm Very low 5
2 Jan 30.9 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
3 Jan 32.3 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
4 Jan 33.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Jan 35.4 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
6 Jan 37.1 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Jan 36.8 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Jan 36.4 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Jan 36.8 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Jan 38.1 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Jan 37.4 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
12 Jan 33.7 °C 35 % 38 km/h 5.6 mm Low 6
13 Jan 29.4 °C 34 % 43 km/h 5.6 mm Low 6
14 Jan 32.6 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Jan 35.4 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Jan 37.9 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Jan 40.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Jan 39.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm High 23
19 Jan 39.9 °C 26 % 33 km/h 1.9 mm High 23
20 Jan 40.7 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
21 Jan after 30.9 °C 53 % 42 km/h 6.2 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Dec 2022
After · 27 Jan 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 31 December 2022 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1055 µg/m³
Optical depth0.57
12131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 1,505Every 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 Sauce fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 December 2022 to 20 January 2023 (39 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 December 2022 to 20 January 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,263 hectares (112.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sauce (6,332 ha, 2.5 %); Esquina (4,954 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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 · 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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 December 2022 to 20 January 2023. 1,505 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.