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Apuí fire, 2 August 2022 Apuí

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2022, 17:36 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2022 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,040 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 42th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 111 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
10,040ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
2 Aug 2022 – 31 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Aug
2022
Heat detections
1,048
in a single hotspot: 295 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
16.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

111213141516171819202122232425262730311

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.7 mm on 6 Sept.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,635 ha in 2017, 1,496 ha in 2018, 3,474 ha in 2019, 6,414 ha in 2020, 5,111 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,716 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    10,088 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
2 Aug 34.2 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
3 Aug 33.8 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Aug 34.5 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
5 Aug 35.0 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
6 Aug 35.2 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
7 Aug 31.9 °C 51 % 27 km/h 2.9 mm Low 6
8 Aug 32.3 °C 53 % 23 km/h 1.3 mm Low 9
9 Aug 34.5 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
10 Aug 32.5 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
11 Aug 33.5 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Aug 34.2 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Aug 35.0 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug 32.2 °C 52 % 28 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17
15 Aug 33.3 °C 46 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm High 22
16 Aug 35.2 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Aug 35.1 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Aug 35.6 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Aug 33.3 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 31.1 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug 34.1 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Aug 33.7 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug 34.0 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Aug 33.9 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
25 Aug 33.3 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Aug 33.9 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
27 Aug 34.2 °C 43 % 26 km/h 2.8 mm Low 10
28 Aug 33.3 °C 47 % 22 km/h 4.9 mm Very low 5
29 Aug 33.6 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Aug 33.5 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
31 Aug 35.2 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Sept after 34.4 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Sept after 33.9 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Sept after 35.2 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Sept after 35.5 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Sept after 34.5 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Sept after 31.9 °C 55 % 28 km/h 10.7 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2022
After · 7 Sept 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 23 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 1,185 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 746: 50 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak1,185 µg/m³
Days over the guideline31 days
PM101,695 µg/m³
Optical depth3.84
45678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 1,048Every 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 2 August 2022 and 31 August 2022: 30 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 10,040 hectares (100.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (10,088 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.

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.