Vera fire, 8 January 2025 Vera
The fire started on 8 January 2025 in Vera, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,729 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 10th largest in Santa Fe since 2016 (of 252 with a page). Number 10 in Argentina in 2025, of 206.
The power measured by the satellite is low (24.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 7,729ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 8 Jan 2025 – 19 Jan 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- departments
- Started on
- 8 Jan
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 423
- in a single hotspot: 25 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.4GW
- 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 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 23 Jan.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 73 ha in 2017, 1,870 ha in 2018, 4,709 ha in 2020, 2,457 ha in 2021, 4,747 ha in 2022, 793 ha in 2023, 9 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,123 ha that had burned before.
- 3,947 ha Vera fire, December 2021 20,819 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,871 ha Vera fire, September 2021 4,764 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,432 ha Vera fire, October 2020 1,511 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 944 ha Vera fire, August 2020 1,978 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 793 ha Vera fire, August 2023 5,641 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 269 ha Vera fire, March 2018 8,648 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 264 ha Vera fire, February 2020 1,803 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 17 ha Vera fire, March 2020 5,041 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Vera where it started7,730 ha reached on 8 Jan0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Jan | 35.9 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 9 Jan | 35.3 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Jan | 35.8 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 11 Jan | 35.2 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Jan | 34.0 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Jan | 35.3 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Jan | 36.6 °C | 24 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Jan | 38.1 °C | 22 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Jan | 37.8 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 17 Jan | 38.8 °C | 29 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 18 Jan | 37.6 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 19 Jan | 27.5 °C | 69 % | 36 km/h | 21.6 mm | Very low 1 |
| 20 Jan after | 29.9 °C | 44 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 21 Jan after | 33.4 °C | 38 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 22 Jan after | 34.8 °C | 36 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 23 Jan after | 34.1 °C | 48 % | 29 km/h | 4.1 mm | Very low 4 |
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 15 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 423Every 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 8 January 2025 and 19 January 2025: 12 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 7,729 hectares (77.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Vera (7,730 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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
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.