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PY · Paraguay · –

Villa Hayes fire, July 2024 Villa Hayes

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2024, 18:01 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2024 in Villa Hayes, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,731 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 564th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 709 with a page). Number 142 in Paraguay in 2024, of 188.

Burnt area
1,731ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
21 Jul 2024 – 25 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
21 Jul
2024
Heat detections
76
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Average daily power
533MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul25 Jul
25 Jul 2024

How it evolved, day by day

22 Jul 2024 · 927 MW · 37 23 Jul 2024 · 287 MW · 15 24 Jul 2024 · 906 MW · 21 25 Jul 2024 · 11 MW · 3
22 Jul 23 Jul 24 Jul 25 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
48km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.6 mm on 29 Jul.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 173 ha in 2019, 1,588 ha in 2020, 933 ha in 2021, 486 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,685 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.1% of the area of London (17 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. Villa Hayes where it started
    1,727 ha reached on 22 Jul
    0.1 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
21 Jul 33.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
22 Jul 31.4 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Jul 33.1 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Jul 33.8 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jul 34.7 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jul after 33.6 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jul after 33.8 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
28 Jul after 33.0 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Jul after 22.2 °C 71 % 35 km/h 11.6 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 25.1, a minimum humidity of 26% and 8 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 63.

FWI at the start 25.1
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 8
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

San Carlos fire, August 2017
1,722 ha 7 days FWI 25.9 Min. humidity 26 % 114 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

8 days
median duration
2,407 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 49 of 63 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,731 ha against a median of 2,407 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 8 days.

In 14 of 63, 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 4.6 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

11.6 mmfirst rain
29 Jul4 days after it ended
48km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 25 Jul, and on 29 Jul 11.6 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 49 of 63, with a median of 4.6 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 · 14 Jul 2024
After · 1 Aug 2024

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 27 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1048 µg/m³
Optical depth1.48
19 Jul21 Jul23 Jul25 Jul27 Jul
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 · 76Every 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 Paraguay

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Villa Hayes fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 July 2024 and 25 July 2024: 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 1,731 hectares (17.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Villa Hayes (1,727 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Paraguay (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: 63. Their median duration was 8 days and their median area 2,407 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 14 of 63, 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 4.6 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: 132 · 911 · 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 132 · 911.

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. 76 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 2025, 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 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.