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PY · Paraguay · –

Villa Oliva fire, January 2025 Villa Oliva

Out · last detection 7 Jan 2025, 17:24 UTC

The fire started on 3 January 2025 in Villa Oliva, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,119 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 38th largest in Ñeembucú since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 18 in Paraguay in 2025, of 42.

Burnt area
2,119ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
3 Jan 2025 – 8 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Jan
2025
Heat detections
62
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
208MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jan8 Jan
7 Jan 2025

How it evolved, day by day

3 Jan 2025 · 478 MW · 31 4 Jan 2025 · 40 MW · 8 5 Jan 2025 · 78 MW · 8 6 Jan 2025 · 325 MW · 12 7 Jan 2025 · 117 MW · 3
3 Jan 4 Jan 5 Jan 6 Jan 7 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
33km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 32 ha in 2016, 1,053 ha in 2018, 43 ha in 2019, 2,507 ha in 2020, 1,012 ha in 2021, 130 ha in 2022, 139 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,985 ha that had burned before.

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. Villa Oliva where it started
    2,130 ha reached on 3 Jan
    1.3 %

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 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)
3 Jan 35.6 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
4 Jan 34.9 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Jan 34.1 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Jan 35.1 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 Jan 35.1 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Jan 35.4 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Jan after 35.8 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Jan after 36.4 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Jan after 35.5 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Jan after 34.5 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Jan after 36.0 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Jan after 34.9 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Jan after 36.5 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Jan after 37.9 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Jan after 38.5 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Jan after 39.8 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 20.7, a minimum humidity of 36% and 9 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 44.

FWI at the start 20.7
Minimum humidity 36 %
Days without rain 9
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Caapucu fire, February 2022
3,352 ha 7 days FWI 22.1 Min. humidity 37 % 26 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.4 mm on 20 Feb.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
2,366 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
7.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 44 of 44 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,119 ha against a median of 2,366 ha) and lasted 6 days, against 5 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.1 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
33km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 8 Jan, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 44 of 44, with a median of 7.1 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 Dec 2024
After · 15 Jan 2025

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 1 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1017 µg/m³
Optical depth0.29
1 Jan3 Jan5 Jan7 Jan9 Jan
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 · 62Every 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 Oliva fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 January 2025 to 8 January 2025 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 January 2025 to 6 January 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,119 hectares (21.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Villa Oliva (2,130 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 33 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 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: 44. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 2,366 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.1 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 6 January 2025 → 8 January 2025.

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 132 · 911.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 January 2025 to 6 January 2025. 62 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.