Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Apuí fire, August 2019 Apuí

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2019, 17:04 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2019 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,797 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 284th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 686 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
3,797ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
8 Aug 2019 – 15 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Aug
2019
Heat detections
342
in a single hotspot: 474 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

89101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
44km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 23 Aug.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,903 ha in 2016, 2,546 ha in 2017, 19 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,878 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    3,816 ha reached on 8 Aug
    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)
3 Aug 36.8 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Aug 34.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Aug 34.3 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug 36.0 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug 34.7 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Aug 35.5 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Aug 37.1 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Aug 37.7 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Aug 38.0 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Aug 39.0 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug 39.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug 38.6 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Aug 36.0 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Aug after 35.2 °C 41 % 37 km/h 3.3 mm Moderate 12
17 Aug after 34.4 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Aug after 34.8 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
19 Aug after 38.0 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug after 37.3 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Aug after 37.9 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
22 Aug after 37.8 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug after 37.5 °C 30 % 37 km/h 1.5 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2019
After · 22 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 · 342Every 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 8 August 2019 and 15 August 2019: 8 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 3,797 hectares (38.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (3,816 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.

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.