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Aguiar fire, November 2019 Aguiar

Out · last detection 18 Nov 2019, 15:41 UTC

The fire started on 10 November 2019 in Aguiar, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,517 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 769 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
3,517ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
10 Nov 2019 – 18 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Nov
2019
Heat detections
204
in a single hotspot: 328 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Nov 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Nov18 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
45km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 26 Nov.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 860 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Aguiar 5,003 inhabitants where it started
    3,539 ha reached on 10 Nov
    10 %

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)
10 Nov 36.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Nov 36.7 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Nov 36.9 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Nov 36.7 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Nov 35.9 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Nov 36.7 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Nov 36.3 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Nov 35.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Nov 36.4 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Nov after 35.2 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Nov after 36.1 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Nov after 35.4 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Nov after 35.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Nov after 36.1 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Nov after 37.5 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Nov after 35.3 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Nov after 34.5 °C 35 % 32 km/h 1.7 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Nov 2019
After · 25 Nov 2019

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 · 204Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aguiar fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 November 2019 and 18 November 2019: 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 3,517 hectares (35.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aguiar (3,539 ha, 10 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Brazil (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: 193

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
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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 193.

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 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.