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Villeta fire, September 2020 Villeta

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2020, 05:03 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2020 in Villeta, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,806 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in CENTRAL since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 316 in Paraguay in 2020, of 424.

Burnt area
1,806ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
25 Sept 2020 – 27 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
25 Sept
2020
Heat detections
67
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
379MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept27 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

252627

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
67km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 147 ha in 2018, 751 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 781 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Villeta where it started
    1,813 ha reached on 25 Sept
    2.1 %

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)
25 Sept 39.6 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Sept 41.2 °C 20 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Sept 32.8 °C 39 % 62 km/h 2.9 mm Moderate 21
28 Sept after 27.9 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
29 Sept after 35.9 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Sept after 41.1 °C 24 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Oct after 43.0 °C 18 % 69 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 64
2 Oct after 38.7 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Oct after 26.0 °C 52 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Oct after 27.4 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Oct after 25.1 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Oct after 30.2 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Oct after 34.7 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Sept 2020
After · 4 Oct 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 · 67Every 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 September 2020 and 27 September 2020: 3 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 1,806 hectares (18.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Villeta (1,813 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
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.