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Apiacás fire, 9 August 2022 Apiacás

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2022, 16:45 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2022 in Apiacás, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,685 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 158th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 25 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
23,685ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
9 Aug 2022 – 8 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Aug
2022
Heat detections
2,131
in a single hotspot: 636 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
21.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug8 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
49km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 12 Sept.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,885 ha in 2017, 2,671 ha in 2018, 3,372 ha in 2019, 9,567 ha in 2020, 7,161 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,900 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apiacás 8,590 inhabitants where it started
    23,888 ha reached on 11 Aug
    1.2 %

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)
9 Aug 32.5 °C 46 % 30 km/h 1.5 mm Low 9
10 Aug 30.1 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Aug 31.3 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Aug 33.7 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Aug 34.6 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Aug 34.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug 32.5 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
16 Aug 32.4 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
17 Aug 33.2 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
18 Aug 34.6 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Aug 31.3 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
20 Aug 30.0 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug 34.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Aug 34.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug 34.5 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Aug 35.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug 34.8 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Aug 33.3 °C 40 % 19 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
27 Aug 33.6 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Aug 34.4 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 36.6 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Aug 36.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 36.6 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept 36.1 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 35.9 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept 36.2 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Sept 35.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Sept 36.8 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Sept 33.1 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 35
7 Sept 34.6 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
8 Sept 33.7 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
9 Sept after 31.9 °C 53 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
10 Sept after 35.3 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
11 Sept after 34.5 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Sept after 30.7 °C 57 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2022
After · 15 Sept 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 25 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 412 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 220: 15 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak412 µg/m³
Days over the guideline33 days
PM10587 µg/m³
Optical depth2.88
789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 2,131Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 August 2022 and 8 September 2022: 31 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 23,685 hectares (236.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apiacás (23,888 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

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 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.