Vera fire, 4 August 2023 Vera
The fire started on 4 August 2023 in Vera, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,641 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 18th largest in Santa Fe since 2016 (of 252 with a page). Number 22 in Argentina in 2023, of 180.
- Burnt area
- 5,641ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 4 Aug 2023 – 7 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- departments
- Started on
- 4 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 198
- in a single hotspot: 33 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.6GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 8 Aug.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 110 ha in 2017, 2,996 ha in 2018, 3,549 ha in 2020, 905 ha in 2021, 3,959 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,480 ha that had burned before.
- 3,159 ha Vera fire, December 2021 20,819 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,706 ha Vera fire, March 2018 8,648 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,073 ha Vera fire, February 2020 1,803 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 319 ha Vera fire, April 2020 1,799 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 278 ha Vera fire, June 2020 1,529 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 130 ha Vera fire, May 2020 1,670 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 91 ha Vera fire, February 2020 2,113 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Vera where it started5,641 ha reached on 4 Aug0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Aug | 28.3 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Aug | 32.1 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Aug | 34.9 °C | 27 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Aug | 23.4 °C | 26 % | 53 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Aug after | 18.2 °C | 58 % | 36 km/h | 3.6 mm | Low 5 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 4 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 198Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Vera fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 August 2023 and 7 August 2023: 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 5,641 hectares (56.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Vera (5,641 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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
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.