How long did the Apuí fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2022 and 23 August 2022: 12 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 3,632 hectares (36.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Apuí (3,649 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2022-08-12 → 2022-08-23

Apuí fire, 12 August 2022 Apuí

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2022, 17:04 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2022 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,632 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 303th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 482 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area: 3,632ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 12 Aug 2022 – 23 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 12 Aug; 2022
Heat detections: 240; in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start: 26; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Aug 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

121314151617181920212223

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

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.0 mm on 6 Sept.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 42 ha in 2017, 1,006 ha in 2019, 1,534 ha in 2020, 986 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,153 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started

3,649 ha reached on 12 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)
12 Aug	34.4 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
13 Aug	35.2 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
14 Aug	32.6 °C	52 %	28 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 15
15 Aug	33.6 °C	47 %	29 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 20
16 Aug	35.4 °C	38 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	High 26
17 Aug	35.3 °C	40 %	25 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
18 Aug	35.5 °C	37 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 Aug	33.7 °C	42 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
20 Aug	31.4 °C	43 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
21 Aug	34.4 °C	30 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Aug	33.8 °C	36 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Aug	34.2 °C	36 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 Aug after	34.0 °C	39 %	21 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
25 Aug after	33.3 °C	48 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
26 Aug after	34.3 °C	42 %	24 km/h	0.4 mm	High 26
27 Aug after	34.7 °C	42 %	26 km/h	2.6 mm	Moderate 12
28 Aug after	33.7 °C	49 %	20 km/h	5.4 mm	Very low 5
29 Aug after	33.5 °C	48 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
30 Aug after	34.8 °C	42 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
31 Aug after	35.7 °C	39 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
1 Sept after	34.5 °C	39 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
2 Sept after	34.0 °C	47 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
3 Sept after	35.2 °C	35 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
4 Sept after	35.7 °C	29 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Sept after	34.8 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
6 Sept after	32.3 °C	56 %	30 km/h	11.0 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Aug 2022

After · 30 Aug 2022

Before After

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 814 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 521: 35 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak814 µg/m³

Days over the guideline17 days

PM101,162 µg/m³

Optical depth4.06

WHO 15

1011121314151617181920212223242526

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 · 240Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Apuí fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2022 and 23 August 2022: 12 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 3,632 hectares (36.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Apuí (3,649 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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.

Where it burned