Skip to content
worldfires
PY · Paraguay · →

Villeta fire, 25 August 2020 Villeta

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2020, 17:17 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2020 in Villeta, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,713 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in CENTRAL since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 101 in Paraguay in 2020, of 424.

Burnt area
3,713ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
25 Aug 2020 – 1 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
25 Aug
2020
Heat detections
245
in a single hotspot: 141 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

252627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
59km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.3 mm on 7 Sept.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 406 ha in 2017, 609 ha in 2018, 541 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,275 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Villeta where it started
    3,729 ha reached on 19 Aug
    4.3 %

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)
19 Aug 24.3 °C 46 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Aug 14.8 °C 36 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Aug 15.6 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
22 Aug 20.7 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
23 Aug 26.3 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Aug 31.5 °C 32 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Aug 33.6 °C 29 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Aug 34.4 °C 26 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Aug 36.0 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Aug 36.1 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Aug 38.7 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug 27.6 °C 49 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Aug 23.0 °C 52 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Sept 22.8 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
2 Sept after 18.6 °C 56 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
3 Sept after 19.6 °C 50 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
4 Sept after 26.3 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
5 Sept after 35.7 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Sept after 25.6 °C 57 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Sept after 18.0 °C 74 % 37 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Aug 2020
After · 8 Sept 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 · 245Every 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 Villeta fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 August 2020 and 1 September 2020: 8 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 3,713 hectares (37.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Villeta (3,729 ha, 4.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very 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.

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

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
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.

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.