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Apuí fire, 6 August 2021 Apuí

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2021, 17:35 UTC

The fire started on 6 August 2021 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,385 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 139th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 366 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
5,385ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
6 Aug 2021 – 14 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Aug
2021
Heat detections
688
in a single hotspot: 288 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
15.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213

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
36km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 631 ha in 2017, 2,292 ha in 2019, 1,934 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,699 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    5,413 ha reached on 5 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)
5 Aug 38.4 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Aug 37.3 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug 37.1 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Aug 37.3 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 38.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Aug 38.5 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Aug 38.4 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 38.6 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Aug 35.8 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug 35.0 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Aug after 36.1 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 37.1 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Aug after 38.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Aug after 37.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug after 37.5 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Aug after 37.4 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Aug after 38.2 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug after 37.9 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug after 38.8 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Aug after 38.0 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug after 38.7 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Aug after 38.6 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug after 36.9 °C 32 % 28 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jul 2021
After · 21 Aug 2021

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 · 688Every 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 6 August 2021 and 14 August 2021: 9 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 5,385 hectares (53.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (5,413 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.

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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.