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Vera fire, 31 October 2020 Vera

Out · last detection 6 Nov 2020, 05:54 UTC

The fire started on 31 October 2020 in Vera, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,364 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in Santa Fe since 2016 (of 252 with a page). Number 173 in Argentina in 2020, of 671.

Burnt area
3,364ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
31 Oct 2020 – 6 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
31 Oct
2020
Heat detections
112
in a single hotspot: 188 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
253MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

6 Nov 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Oct6 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

31 Oct 2020 · 80 MW · 12 1 Nov 2020 · 27 MW · 9 2 Nov 2020 · 1 MW · 1 3 Nov 2020 · 41 MW · 3 4 Nov 2020 · 1,559 MW · 67 5 Nov 2020 · 58 MW · 14 6 Nov 2020 · 7 MW · 6
31 Oct 1 Nov 2 Nov 3 Nov 4 Nov 5 Nov 6 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
41km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.3 mm on 8 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Vera where it started
    3,345 ha reached on 31 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
31 Oct 27.6 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
1 Nov 28.7 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
2 Nov 29.8 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Nov 30.6 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
4 Nov 30.1 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
5 Nov 30.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Nov 32.2 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Nov after 33.2 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Nov after 25.5 °C 45 % 32 km/h 8.3 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Oct 2020
After · 13 Nov 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 · 112Every 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 31 October 2020 and 6 November 2020: 7 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 3,364 hectares (33.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vera (3,345 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
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.