How long did the Utracán fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 December 2016 and 24 December 2016: 4 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 11,767 hectares (117.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Utracán (11,764 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.

AR · Argentina · 2016-12-21 → 2016-12-24

Utracán fire, 21 December 2016 Utracán

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2016, 18:11 UTC

The fire started on 21 December 2016 in Utracán, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,767 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in La Pampa since 2016 (of 190 with a page). Number 12 in Argentina in 2016, of 255.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Utracán · 2024 Utracán · 2017 Utracán · 2016 Utracán · 2016

Burnt area: 11,767ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 4days; 21 Dec 2016 – 24 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; departments
Started on: 21 Dec; 2016
Heat detections: 533; in a single hotspot: 326 MW
Danger at start: 51; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 3.5GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Dec24 Dec

Play back 24 Dec 2016

How it evolved, day by day

21 Dec 22 Dec 23 Dec 24 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

63km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 31 Dec.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.4% of the area of London (118 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

Utracán where it started

11,764 ha reached on 21 Dec

0.9 %

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.

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)
21 Dec	27.9 °C	12 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
22 Dec	29.7 °C	17 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Dec	32.8 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Dec	35.8 °C	15 %	53 km/h	1.2 mm	Very high 40
25 Dec after	32.0 °C	13 %	55 km/h	0.8 mm	Very high 44
26 Dec after	26.9 °C	18 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
27 Dec after	31.6 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
28 Dec after	35.2 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
29 Dec after	37.2 °C	17 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
30 Dec after	38.0 °C	13 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
31 Dec after	32.4 °C	18 %	50 km/h	1.8 mm	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Dec 2016

After · 31 Dec 2016

Before After

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 · 533Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Argentina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Utracán fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 December 2016 and 24 December 2016: 4 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 11,767 hectares (117.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Utracán (11,764 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.

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 ›

Servicio Nacional de Manejo del Fuego ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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. 533 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.

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.

Where it burned