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AR · Argentina · –

Victoria fire, 13 June 2020 Victoria

Out · last detection 17 Jun 2020, 05:17 UTC

The fire started on 13 June 2020 in Victoria, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,063 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 121th largest in Buenos Aires since 2016 (of 203 with a page). Number 390 in Argentina in 2020, of 669.

Burnt area
2,063ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
13 Jun 2020 – 17 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
13 Jun
2020
Heat detections
94
in a single hotspot: 155 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
634MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jun17 Jun
17 Jun 2020

How it evolved, day by day

13 Jun 2020 · 108 MW · 7 14 Jun 2020 · 1,102 MW · 34 16 Jun 2020 · 1,323 MW · 52 17 Jun 2020 · 5 MW · 1
13 Jun 14 Jun 16 Jun 17 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
48km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 188 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (21 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

  1. Victoria where it started
    2,072 ha reached on 13 Jun
    0.3 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
13 Jun 13.5 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Jun 15.6 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Jun 16.5 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
16 Jun 26.1 °C 59 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
17 Jun 25.7 °C 53 % 46 km/h 11.7 mm Moderate 18
18 Jun after 17.5 °C 64 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
19 Jun after 17.4 °C 68 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
20 Jun after 17.2 °C 65 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
21 Jun after 19.2 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
22 Jun after 18.4 °C 56 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
23 Jun after 16.2 °C 82 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
24 Jun after 13.6 °C 68 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Low 6
25 Jun after 13.8 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
26 Jun after 14.8 °C 38 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
27 Jun after 16.3 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 15.8, a minimum humidity of 26% and 23 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 40.

FWI at the start 15.8
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 23
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Victoria fire, June 2022
3,534 ha 5 days FWI 14.0 Min. humidity 27 % 15 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 26 Jun.

What happened to them

8 days
median duration
2,506 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
8.3 mm
rain at the end (median; 38 of 40 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,063 ha against a median of 2,506 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 8 days.

In 2 of 40, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 8.3 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
48km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 17 Jun, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 38 of 40, with a median of 8.3 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jun 2020
After · 24 Jun 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 · 94Every 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 Victoria fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 June 2020 and 17 June 2020: 5 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 2,063 hectares (20.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Victoria (2,072 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 40. Their median duration was 8 days and their median area 2,506 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 40, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 8.3 mm.

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

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

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. 94 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.