Villeta fire, February 2025 Villeta, Nueva Italia
The fire started on 28 February 2025 in Villeta, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,368 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in CENTRAL since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 20 in Paraguay in 2025, of 64.
- Burnt area
- 2,368ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 28 Feb 2025 – 8 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 64
- in a single hotspot: 32 MW
- Danger at start
- 6
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 577MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 11 Mar.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 488 ha in 2016, 1,213 ha in 2017, 665 ha in 2018, 2,069 ha in 2019, 4,735 ha in 2020, 1,899 ha in 2022, 1,061 ha in 2023, 660 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,374 ha that had burned before.
- 1,296 ha Villeta fire, February 2020 1,558 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,213 ha Villeta fire, July 2017 2,073 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,172 ha Villeta fire, January 2022 1,989 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,141 ha Villeta fire, September 2019 1,552 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 77 ha Villeta fire, September 2020 1,806 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Villeta where it started2,367 ha reached on 28 Feb2.7 %
-
10 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Feb | 34.9 °C | 50 % | 50 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 6 |
| 1 Mar | 36.2 °C | 45 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 2 Mar | 38.1 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 3 Mar | 38.6 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 4 Mar | 38.1 °C | 39 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 5 Mar | 38.6 °C | 37 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 6 Mar | 35.8 °C | 42 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Mar | 37.7 °C | 32 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 8 Mar | 37.4 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 9 Mar after | 27.4 °C | 62 % | 43 km/h | 3.4 mm | Very low 4 |
| 10 Mar after | 30.4 °C | 42 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 11 Mar after | 31.8 °C | 45 % | 18 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 3 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 8 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 64Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,675 haPilcomayo24 August 2020 · 6 days · 16 km away
- 4,978 haVilleta14 February 2022 · 7 days · 21 km away
- 13,543 haVilletaMarch 2020 · 8 days · 24 km away
- 22,209 haVilleta20 August 2020 · 13 days · 28 km away
- 5,616 haPilcomayo8 January 2022 · 13 days · 30 km away
- 58,707 haVilla OlivaDecember 2021 · 44 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Villeta fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 February 2025 and 8 March 2025: 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 2,368 hectares (23.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Villeta (2,367 ha, 2.7 %); Nueva Italia (10 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
- 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
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.