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PY · Paraguay · –

Tte. Esteban Martinez fire, 26 October 2019 Tte. Esteban Martinez

Out · last detection 30 Oct 2019, 18:14 UTC

The fire started on 26 October 2019 in Tte. Esteban Martinez, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,104 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 51th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 709 with a page). Number 11 in Paraguay in 2019, of 229.

Burnt area
8,104ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
26 Oct 2019 – 31 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Oct
2019
Heat detections
323
in a single hotspot: 169 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
866MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Oct31 Oct
30 Oct 2019

How it evolved, day by day

26 Oct 2019 · 1,124 MW · 12 27 Oct 2019 · 1,096 MW · 60 28 Oct 2019 · 1,049 MW · 114 29 Oct 2019 · 939 MW · 117 30 Oct 2019 · 120 MW · 20
26 Oct 27 Oct 28 Oct 29 Oct 30 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
66km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.9 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,202 ha in 2016, 1,936 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,598 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.1% of the area of London (81 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
    8,158 ha reached on 26 Oct
    1.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.23 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.23 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)

Started with Strong wind: 23 % of the area in Paraguay

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
26 Oct 38.7 °C 29 % 53 km/h 0.8 mm High 32
27 Oct 41.6 °C 25 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
28 Oct 41.9 °C 26 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Oct 41.9 °C 24 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
30 Oct 42.1 °C 24 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
31 Oct 33.1 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Nov after 39.2 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Nov after 41.0 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Nov after 36.5 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 24
4 Nov after 40.6 °C 28 % 62 km/h 5.9 mm Extreme 59

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 32.3, a minimum humidity of 29% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 63.

FWI at the start 32.3
Minimum humidity 29 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Tte. Esteban Martinez fire, October 2023
2,929 ha 3 days FWI 32.3 Min. humidity 30 % 10 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.3 mm on 25 Oct.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
2,219 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 50 of 63 had it)

It was 3.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 5 days.

Only 2 of its 63 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 13 of 63, 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 5.2 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

5.9 mmfirst rain
4 Nov4 days after it ended
66km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 31 Oct, and on 4 Nov 5.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 50 of 63, with a median of 5.2 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 · 19 Oct 2019
After · 7 Nov 2019

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 · 323Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 October 2019 and 31 October 2019: 6 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 8,104 hectares (81.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tte. Esteban Martinez (8,158 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
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: 63. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 2,219 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 63 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 13 of 63, 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 5.2 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 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 132 · 911.

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. 323 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 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.