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Apuí fire, 23 July 2017 Apuí

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2017, 05:29 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2017 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,066 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 249th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 629 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Apuí · 2024Apuí · 2019Apuí · 2024Apuí · 2026

Burnt area
4,066ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
23 Jul 2017 – 10 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2017
Heat detections
402
in a single hotspot: 419 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Average daily power
385MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul10 Aug
11 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 2017 · 322 MW · 12 24 Jul 2017 · 455 MW · 17 25 Jul 2017 · 242 MW · 16 26 Jul 2017 · 437 MW · 32 27 Jul 2017 · 1,299 MW · 30 28 Jul 2017 · 284 MW · 22 29 Jul 2017 · 3,229 MW · 52 30 Jul 2017 · 280 MW · 40 31 Jul 2017 · 192 MW · 39 1 Aug 2017 · 157 MW · 32 2 Aug 2017 · 100 MW · 19 3 Aug 2017 · 189 MW · 20 4 Aug 2017 · 131 MW · 14 5 Aug 2017 · 288 MW · 24 6 Aug 2017 · 13 MW · 10 7 Aug 2017 · 16 MW · 4 8 Aug 2017 · 18 MW · 2 9 Aug 2017 · 49 MW · 14 10 Aug 2017 · 1 MW · 1 11 Aug 2017 · 1 MW · 2
23 Jul 26 Jul 29 Jul 1 Aug 4 Aug 7 Aug 10 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

41°high
44km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,705 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,481 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.6% of the area of London (41 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. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    4,086 ha reached on 23 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)
16 Jul 37.3 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Jul 38.9 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jul 34.3 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Jul 34.2 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Jul 37.2 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Jul 38.3 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Jul 39.0 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jul 35.6 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jul 38.3 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Jul 39.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Jul 39.1 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jul 39.7 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Jul 38.9 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Jul 37.3 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul 37.9 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jul 39.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Aug 39.5 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Aug 39.5 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug 41.2 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Aug 41.4 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Aug 37.7 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Aug 37.6 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug 39.1 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Aug 39.8 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 43
9 Aug 38.8 °C 30 % 33 km/h 2.0 mm High 26
10 Aug 38.5 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.5 mm High 31
11 Aug after 34.3 °C 44 % 27 km/h 6.0 mm Low 6
12 Aug after 34.7 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
13 Aug after 36.5 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
14 Aug after 37.2 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Aug after 39.6 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Aug after 36.6 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Aug after 34.1 °C 44 % 34 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 14
18 Aug after 38.7 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Aug after 38.0 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Aug after 39.3 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Aug after 35.1 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
22 Aug after 36.2 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug after 36.4 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug after 37.7 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm High 30
25 Aug after 39.9 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug after 40.0 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug after 39.3 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2017
After · 17 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 · 402Every 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 23 July 2017 and 10 August 2017: 19 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 4,066 hectares (40.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (4,086 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 44 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.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 402 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.

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.