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AR · Argentina · –

Victoria fire, 3 September 2022 Victoria

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2022, 05:06 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2022 in Victoria, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,460 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Buenos Aires since 2016 (of 203 with a page). Number 16 in Argentina in 2022, of 441.

Burnt area
13,460ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
3 Sept 2022 – 17 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
3 Sept
2022
Heat detections
968
in a single hotspot: 170 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
1.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept17 Sept
17 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

3 Sept 2022 · 4 MW · 1 6 Sept 2022 · 5 MW · 1 7 Sept 2022 · 342 MW · 7 8 Sept 2022 · 513 MW · 20 9 Sept 2022 · 801 MW · 42 10 Sept 2022 · 399 MW · 31 11 Sept 2022 · 86 MW · 35 12 Sept 2022 · 2,675 MW · 140 13 Sept 2022 · 9,868 MW · 435 14 Sept 2022 · 460 MW · 54 15 Sept 2022 · 589 MW · 26 16 Sept 2022 · 3,710 MW · 137 17 Sept 2022 · 335 MW · 39
3 Sept 8 Sept 13 Sept 17 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
55km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 18 Sept.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 646 ha in 2018, 7,576 ha in 2020, 1,003 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,719 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.5% of the area of London (135 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
    13,537 ha reached on 3 Sept
    2.0 %

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 area0.11 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.11 hectares of 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)
3 Sept 20.5 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
4 Sept 22.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
5 Sept 23.5 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
6 Sept 23.6 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
7 Sept 28.0 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Sept 24.8 °C 41 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Sept 16.0 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Sept 20.3 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
11 Sept 19.6 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
12 Sept 21.6 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
13 Sept 23.5 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Sept 24.0 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Sept 24.2 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
16 Sept 25.7 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Sept 27.7 °C 30 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Sept after 22.1 °C 52 % 34 km/h 2.0 mm Low 6

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 12.3, a minimum humidity of 25% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 32.

FWI at the start 12.3
Minimum humidity 25 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Gualeguay fire, August 2020
3,166 ha 7 days FWI 8.8 Min. humidity 25 % 55 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 13.1 mm on 25 Aug.

What happened to them

11 days
median duration
3,125 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
8.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 31 of 32 had it)

It was 4.3 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 15 days, against 11 days.

Only 4 of its 32 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 32, 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 8.7 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

2.0 mmfirst rain
18 Septthe day after it ended
55km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 17 Sept, and on 18 Sept 2.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 31 of 32, with a median of 8.7 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 · 27 Aug 2022
After · 24 Sept 2022

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 · Copernicus

On 14 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 280 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 118: 7.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak280 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10400 µg/m³
Optical depth1.23
5 Sept9 Sept13 Sept17 Sept
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 968Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 September 2022 to 17 September 2022 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 September 2022 to 17 September 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,460 hectares (134.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Victoria (13,537 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.
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: 32. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 3,125 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 4 of its 32 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 32, 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 8.7 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 7 September 2022 → 3 September 2022.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 September 2022 to 17 September 2022. 968 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.