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Union fire, January 2022 Union, Simon Bolivar

Out · last detection 25 Jan 2022, 17:36 UTC

The fire started on 15 January 2022 in Union, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,117 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in SAN PEDRO since 2016 (of 83 with a page). Number 17 in Paraguay in 2022, of 185.

Burnt area
6,117ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
15 Jan 2022 – 25 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
15 Jan
2022
Heat detections
318
in a single hotspot: 223 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jan25 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819202122232425

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
56km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.0 mm on 27 Jan.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 684 ha in 2017, 143 ha in 2018, 428 ha in 2019, 4,301 ha in 2020, 252 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,544 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Union where it started
    5,270 ha reached on 15 Jan
    8.8 %
  2. Simon Bolivar
    877 ha reached on 18 Jan
    2.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
15 Jan 38.9 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.4 mm High 24
16 Jan 39.9 °C 27 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Jan 40.7 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Jan 40.6 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jan 39.4 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jan 38.6 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jan 38.9 °C 31 % 44 km/h 1.1 mm High 28
22 Jan 40.2 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Jan 41.3 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Jan 41.7 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jan 39.4 °C 32 % 25 km/h 1.5 mm High 27
26 Jan after 39.3 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
27 Jan after 30.2 °C 69 % 32 km/h 11.0 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jan 2022
After · 1 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 · 318Every 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 Union fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 January 2022 and 25 January 2022: 11 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 6,117 hectares (61.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Union (5,270 ha, 8.8 %); Simon Bolivar (877 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.