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Apuí fire, 10 August 2022 Apuí

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2022, 05:49 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2022 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,359 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 211th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 366 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
4,359ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
10 Aug 2022 – 24 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Aug
2022
Heat detections
261
in a single hotspot: 118 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

111215161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
41km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.1 mm on 6 Sept.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 789 ha in 2016, 1,429 ha in 2017, 136 ha in 2018, 1,878 ha in 2019, 5,347 ha in 2020, 3,431 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,293 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    4,382 ha reached on 11 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)
10 Aug 31.6 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
11 Aug 32.8 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Aug 33.4 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Aug 34.6 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Aug 31.7 °C 55 % 27 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 14
15 Aug 32.8 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
16 Aug 34.6 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Aug 34.5 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
18 Aug 35.2 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Aug 32.3 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Aug 30.7 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug 33.4 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Aug 33.4 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Aug 33.4 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Aug 33.9 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Aug after 33.1 °C 47 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
26 Aug after 33.2 °C 47 % 27 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 15
27 Aug after 33.4 °C 47 % 25 km/h 3.9 mm Low 7
28 Aug after 32.4 °C 55 % 22 km/h 7.3 mm Very low 3
29 Aug after 33.1 °C 50 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
30 Aug after 32.2 °C 53 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
31 Aug after 34.6 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Sept after 34.1 °C 41 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Sept after 33.3 °C 46 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Sept after 35.1 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Sept after 35.0 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Sept after 34.2 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Sept after 31.5 °C 56 % 25 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2022
After · 31 Aug 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 2,153 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 994: 66 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak2,153 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM103,070 µg/m³
Optical depth3.83
89101112131415161718192021222324252627
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 · 261Every 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 10 August 2022 and 24 August 2022: 15 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 4,359 hectares (43.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (4,382 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.