Apuí fire, 18 July 2023 Apuí
The fire started on 18 July 2023 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,263 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 49th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 58 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.
- Burnt area
- 9,263ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 18 Jul 2023 – 4 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 845
- in a single hotspot: 409 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 15.7GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.2 mm on 13 Aug.
This area had burned before
73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,237 ha in 2017, 2,931 ha in 2019, 47 ha in 2020, 3,785 ha in 2021, 6,470 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,749 ha that had burned before.
- 2,865 ha Apuí fire, July 2022 3,346 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,063 ha Apuí fire, July 2022 4,572 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 69 ha Apuí fire, July 2019 9,448 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 47 ha Apuí fire, July 2020 8,401 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 39 ha Apuí fire, August 2021 3,922 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
9,309 ha reached on 18 Jul0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jul | 35.5 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Jul | 35.0 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Jul | 35.4 °C | 28 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Jul | 35.4 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Jul | 33.7 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Jul | 34.7 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Jul | 35.0 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 25 Jul | 35.2 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Jul | 35.7 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 27 Jul | 36.4 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Jul | 36.9 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Jul | 37.0 °C | 25 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Jul | 36.0 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 31 Jul | 34.7 °C | 40 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Aug | 33.8 °C | 43 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Aug | 34.1 °C | 44 % | 30 km/h | 2.7 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 3 Aug | 32.6 °C | 51 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 Aug | 35.0 °C | 40 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Aug after | 35.8 °C | 36 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 6 Aug after | 36.3 °C | 33 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Aug after | 35.3 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Aug after | 35.5 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 9 Aug after | 36.1 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 49 % | 26 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 26 |
| 11 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 47 % | 31 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 12 Aug after | 35.7 °C | 41 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 22 |
| 13 Aug after | 31.0 °C | 59 % | 26 km/h | 10.2 mm | Very low 3 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 31 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 207 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 125: 8.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 845Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Apuí fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2023 and 4 August 2023: 18 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 9,263 hectares (92.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Apuí (9,309 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.
Report an error
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.