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Apiacás fire, 26 July 2019 Apiacás

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2019, 17:34 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2019 in Apiacás, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,424 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 984th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 421 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Apiacás · 2020Apiacás · 2024Paranaíta · 2020Paranaíta · 2024

Burnt area
5,424ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
26 Jul 2019 – 24 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Jul
2019
Heat detections
408
in a single hotspot: 319 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
254MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul24 Aug
24 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

26 Jul 2019 · 25 MW · 8 27 Jul 2019 · 19 MW · 5 28 Jul 2019 · 124 MW · 11 29 Jul 2019 · 27 MW · 11 30 Jul 2019 · 30 MW · 2 1 Aug 2019 · 49 MW · 5 2 Aug 2019 · 30 MW · 5 3 Aug 2019 · 12 MW · 3 4 Aug 2019 · 504 MW · 16 5 Aug 2019 · 44 MW · 13 6 Aug 2019 · 78 MW · 7 7 Aug 2019 · 45 MW · 8 8 Aug 2019 · 1,060 MW · 26 9 Aug 2019 · 145 MW · 30 10 Aug 2019 · 26 MW · 8 11 Aug 2019 · 1,222 MW · 17 12 Aug 2019 · 325 MW · 10 13 Aug 2019 · 69 MW · 21 14 Aug 2019 · 5 MW · 1 15 Aug 2019 · 2,264 MW · 31 16 Aug 2019 · 601 MW · 77 17 Aug 2019 · 95 MW · 22 18 Aug 2019 · 40 MW · 11 19 Aug 2019 · 91 MW · 12 20 Aug 2019 · 123 MW · 11 21 Aug 2019 · 153 MW · 13 22 Aug 2019 · 46 MW · 7 23 Aug 2019 · 42 MW · 9 24 Aug 2019 · 68 MW · 8
26 Jul 1 Aug 6 Aug 11 Aug 15 Aug 16 Aug 21 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 131 ha in 2016, 904 ha in 2017, 1,501 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,666 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.4% of the area of London (54 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Apiacás 8,590 inhabitants where it started
    5,469 ha reached on 26 Jul
    0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
26 Jul 33.5 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jul 32.9 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jul 32.3 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul 34.2 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jul 33.2 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jul 34.1 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Aug 34.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Aug 34.0 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Aug 30.1 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug 29.6 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Aug 30.6 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug 33.7 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Aug 33.6 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug 32.6 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Aug 32.9 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug 33.5 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug 33.8 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 35.1 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug 34.6 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug 33.0 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug 33.8 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Aug 33.3 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Aug 33.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug 32.9 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug 34.2 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 35.4 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Aug 35.1 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Aug 34.6 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug 36.0 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Aug 34.4 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
25 Aug after 33.5 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
26 Aug after 35.2 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Aug after 34.8 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Aug after 35.6 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Aug after 36.0 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug after 34.8 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Aug after 34.0 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Sept after 34.2 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept after 34.9 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept after 35.0 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jul 2019
After · 31 Aug 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 · 408Every 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 Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Apiacás fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 July 2019 to 24 August 2019 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 August 2019 to 24 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,424 hectares (54.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apiacás (5,469 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 193.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 August 2019 to 24 August 2019. 408 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.