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Apuí fire, 19 July 2017 Apuí

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2017, 17:22 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2017 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,508 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 195th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 543 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
4,508ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
19 Jul 2017 – 8 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Jul
2017
Heat detections
374
in a single hotspot: 720 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
12.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

192021222324252627282930311234678

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
41km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.7 mm on 17 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    4,531 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
19 Jul 33.6 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jul 36.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul 37.5 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul 38.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jul 35.5 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jul 37.4 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul 38.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul 38.3 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jul 38.7 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jul 38.1 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Jul 36.6 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul 37.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Jul 38.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Aug 38.9 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Aug 38.7 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug 40.3 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Aug 40.6 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Aug 37.3 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Aug 36.7 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 38.3 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Aug 39.1 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41
9 Aug after 38.2 °C 31 % 33 km/h 1.6 mm High 26
10 Aug after 38.0 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm High 28
11 Aug after 33.1 °C 43 % 27 km/h 8.0 mm Very low 5
12 Aug after 33.0 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
13 Aug after 35.3 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Aug after 35.8 °C 42 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
15 Aug after 38.5 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Aug after 35.2 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
17 Aug after 32.2 °C 55 % 32 km/h 4.7 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2017
After · 15 Aug 2017

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 · 374Every 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 Apuí fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 July 2017 and 8 August 2017: 21 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 4,508 hectares (45.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (4,531 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.

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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.