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Vera fire, 3 August 2020 Vera

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2020, 06:06 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2020 in Vera, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,803 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Santa Fe since 2016 (of 252 with a page). Number 34 in Argentina in 2020, of 671.

Burnt area
9,803ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
3 Aug 2020 – 12 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
3 Aug
2020
Heat detections
319
in a single hotspot: 489 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
11.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

34567891012

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
57km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 451 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Vera where it started
    9,768 ha reached on 3 Aug
    0.5 %

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)
3 Aug 34.0 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug 35.1 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug 35.4 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Aug 34.0 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Aug 24.8 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Aug 31.9 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Aug 34.2 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Aug 33.6 °C 23 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Aug 18.3 °C 16 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Aug 16.6 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Aug after 22.2 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Aug after 23.2 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Aug after 23.0 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug after 23.6 °C 11 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Aug after 26.3 °C 5 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug after 28.3 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug after 19.0 °C 21 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 Aug after 15.2 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Aug after 17.8 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Aug after 21.1 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2020
After · 19 Aug 2020

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 · 319Every 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 Vera fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2020 and 12 August 2020: 10 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 9,803 hectares (98.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vera (9,768 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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

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 911 · 100.

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.