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Villeta fire, 8 February 2022 Villeta

Out · last detection 17 Feb 2022, 17:04 UTC

The fire started on 8 February 2022 in Villeta, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,325 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in CENTRAL since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 87 in Paraguay in 2022, of 185.

Burnt area
2,325ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
8 Feb 2022 – 16 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Feb
2022
Heat detections
103
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
937MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Feb 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Feb16 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617

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
47km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 20 Feb.

This area had burned before

80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 415 ha in 2017, 492 ha in 2018, 134 ha in 2019, 3,296 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,862 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Villeta where it started
    2,335 ha reached on 2 Feb
    2.7 %

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)
2 Feb 37.7 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Feb 36.0 °C 44 % 37 km/h 8.4 mm Low 7
4 Feb 34.5 °C 54 % 34 km/h 0.9 mm Low 11
5 Feb 30.6 °C 50 % 34 km/h 23.7 mm Very low 1
6 Feb 30.9 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
7 Feb 30.8 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
8 Feb 33.4 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Feb 34.7 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Feb 36.3 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Feb 37.0 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
12 Feb 33.4 °C 47 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Feb 31.1 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Feb 34.2 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Feb 37.4 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
16 Feb 38.9 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Feb after 35.1 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Feb after 37.5 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Feb after 37.9 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Feb after 33.7 °C 45 % 41 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Feb 2022
After · 23 Feb 2022

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 · 103Every 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 8 February 2022 and 16 February 2022: 9 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 2,325 hectares (23.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Villeta (2,335 ha, 2.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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.