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PY · Paraguay · –

Tte. Esteban Martinez fire, 9 September 2017 Tte. Esteban Martinez

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2017, 04:56 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2017 in Tte. Esteban Martinez, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,781 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 279th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 709 with a page). Number 51 in Paraguay in 2017, of 261.

Burnt area
2,781ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
9 Sept 2017 – 14 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Sept
2017
Heat detections
100
in a single hotspot: 203 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
268MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept14 Sept
14 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

9 Sept 2017 · 133 MW · 5 10 Sept 2017 · 422 MW · 37 11 Sept 2017 · 972 MW · 28 12 Sept 2017 · 74 MW · 24 13 Sept 2017 · 5 MW · 5 14 Sept 2017 · 2 MW · 1
9 Sept 11 Sept 13 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
87km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 27.7 mm on 15 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (28 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. Tte. Esteban Martinez where it started
    2,791 ha reached on 9 Sept
    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 2015
Built-up area0.21 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.21 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)

Started with Strong wind: 22 % of the area in Paraguay

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
9 Sept 37.9 °C 25 % 67 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
10 Sept 38.4 °C 29 % 87 km/h 1.3 mm Very high 45
11 Sept 22.3 °C 50 % 48 km/h 3.7 mm Low 6
12 Sept 27.1 °C 49 % 26 km/h 1.3 mm Low 6
13 Sept 32.6 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
14 Sept 28.2 °C 49 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
15 Sept after 20.8 °C 75 % 42 km/h 27.7 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 39.4, a minimum humidity of 25% and 3 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 39.4
Minimum humidity 25 %
Days without rain 3
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Puerto Pinasco fire, January 2022
1,808 ha 7 days FWI 38.8 Min. humidity 25 % 118 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 10.1 mm on 3 Feb.

What happened to them

7 days
median duration
2,145 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
6.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 15 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,781 ha against a median of 2,145 ha) and lasted 6 days, against 7 days.

In 2 of 15, 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 6.6 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

27.7 mmfirst rain
15 Septthe day after it ended
87km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 Sept, and on 15 Sept 27.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 15, with a median of 6.6 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 · 2 Sept 2017
After · 21 Sept 2017

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 · 100Every 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 Paraguay

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tte. Esteban Martinez fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 September 2017 to 14 September 2017 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 September 2017 to 13 September 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,781 hectares (27.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tte. Esteban Martinez (2,791 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 87 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Paraguay (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: 15. Their median duration was 7 days and their median area 2,145 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 15, 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 6.6 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: 132 · 911 · 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 13 September 2017 → 14 September 2017.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 132 · 911.

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 9 September 2017 to 13 September 2017. 100 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 2015, 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 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.