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Apuí fire, 5 August 2021 Apuí

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

The fire started on 5 August 2021 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,374 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 359th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 692 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
3,374ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
5 Aug 2021 – 13 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Aug
2021
Heat detections
265
in a single hotspot: 161 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
41km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5 ha in 2017, 2,370 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    3,390 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)
29 Jul 33.9 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul 33.9 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jul 35.0 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Aug 36.7 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Aug 34.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug 33.7 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Aug 36.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Aug 37.1 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Aug 36.3 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Aug 36.0 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug 36.4 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 37.8 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Aug 37.2 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Aug 37.4 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Aug 36.9 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Aug 33.8 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
14 Aug after 33.2 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
15 Aug after 33.7 °C 45 % 27 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 18
16 Aug after 35.0 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
17 Aug after 36.5 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug after 36.4 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Aug after 36.3 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Aug after 35.7 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Aug after 37.3 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug after 37.0 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Aug after 36.7 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Aug after 36.3 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
25 Aug after 36.8 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
26 Aug after 37.5 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Aug after 37.8 °C 29 % 32 km/h 2.2 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2021
After · 20 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 · 265Every 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 5 August 2021 and 13 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 3,374 hectares (33.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (3,390 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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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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.