How long did the Villeta fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2020 and 1 September 2020: 13 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 22,209 hectares (222.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 5 municipalities: Nueva Italia (10,077 ha, 27 %); Villeta (5,672 ha, 6.5 %); Quiindy (3,439 ha, 5.2 %); Villa Oliva (2,508 ha, 1.6 %); Carapegua (619 ha, 1.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 59 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 Paraguay (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

PY · Paraguay · 2020-08-20 → 2020-09-01

Villeta fire, 20 August 2020 Nueva Italia, Villeta, Quiindy

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

The fire started on 20 August 2020 in Villeta, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,209 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in CENTRAL since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 11 in Paraguay in 2020, of 424.

Burnt area: 22,209ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 20 Aug 2020 – 1 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit: 5; districts
Started on: 20 Aug; 2020
Heat detections: 1,125; in a single hotspot: 550 MW
Danger at start: 12; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 33.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Sept 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324252627282930311

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

59km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 6 Sept.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,776 ha in 2016, 1,564 ha in 2017, 3,623 ha in 2018, 3,110 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,216 ha that had burned before.

1,716 ha Villeta fire, August 2018 2,093 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Nueva Italia

10,077 ha reached on 26 Aug

27 %
Villeta where it started

5,672 ha reached on 19 Aug

6.5 %
Quiindy

3,439 ha reached on 25 Aug

5.2 %
Villa Oliva

2,508 ha reached on 23 Aug

1.6 %
Carapegua

619 ha reached on 30 Aug

1.3 %

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)
20 Aug	13.7 °C	40 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
21 Aug	13.3 °C	41 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
22 Aug	18.5 °C	42 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
23 Aug	23.2 °C	46 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
24 Aug	28.5 °C	44 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
25 Aug	31.2 °C	40 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
26 Aug	32.3 °C	33 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
27 Aug	34.5 °C	31 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
28 Aug	33.6 °C	34 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
29 Aug	35.2 °C	28 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
30 Aug	25.4 °C	59 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
31 Aug	22.9 °C	60 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
1 Sept	22.7 °C	60 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
2 Sept after	20.8 °C	54 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
3 Sept after	19.1 °C	56 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
4 Sept after	23.7 °C	51 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
5 Sept after	33.3 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
6 Sept after	24.6 °C	62 %	48 km/h	2.3 mm	Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Aug 2020

After · 8 Sept 2020

Before After

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 · 1,125Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Paraguay ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Villeta fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2020 and 1 September 2020: 13 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 22,209 hectares (222.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 5 municipalities: Nueva Italia (10,077 ha, 27 %); Villeta (5,672 ha, 6.5 %); Quiindy (3,439 ha, 5.2 %); Villa Oliva (2,508 ha, 1.6 %); Carapegua (619 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 59 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 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned