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Apuí fire, 28 July 2023 Apuí

Out · last detection 2 Aug 2023, 05:18 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2023 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,380 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 357th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 354 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
3,380ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
28 Jul 2023 – 2 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Jul
2023
Heat detections
222
in a single hotspot: 343 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul2 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
34km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.3 mm on 13 Aug.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,066 ha in 2021, 1,723 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,114 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    3,400 ha reached on 23 Jul
    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)
23 Jul 34.4 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jul 34.7 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jul 35.1 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Jul 35.1 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jul 35.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jul 36.5 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Jul 36.8 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jul 36.1 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jul 35.3 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Aug 33.9 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Aug 34.6 °C 41 % 25 km/h 1.0 mm High 24
3 Aug after 33.3 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
4 Aug after 34.7 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
5 Aug after 35.4 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Aug after 35.8 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Aug after 35.0 °C 42 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Aug after 35.3 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
9 Aug after 35.7 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
10 Aug after 34.5 °C 47 % 27 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
11 Aug after 34.1 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
12 Aug after 34.5 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
13 Aug after 30.4 °C 57 % 30 km/h 6.3 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2023
After · 9 Aug 2023

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 31 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 189 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 95: 6.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak189 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10270 µg/m³
Optical depth1.23
26272829303112345
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 · 222Every 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 28 July 2023 and 2 August 2023: 6 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 3,380 hectares (33.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (3,400 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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
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.