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Aripuanã fire, 30 August 2018 Aripuanã

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2018, 17:09 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2018 in Aripuanã, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,215 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1021th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 87 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
5,215ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
30 Aug 2018 – 17 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2018
Heat detections
528
in a single hotspot: 239 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
7.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3031123456789101112131415161718

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
41km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.2 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 934 ha in 2016, 2,699 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,217 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Aripuanã 25,766 inhabitants where it started
    5,250 ha reached on 28 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)
28 Aug 35.0 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
29 Aug 33.7 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Aug 34.3 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
31 Aug 36.4 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Sept 35.2 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
2 Sept 35.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Sept 33.7 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Sept 32.7 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Sept 34.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Sept 36.4 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 35.5 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Sept 36.7 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Sept 36.0 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
10 Sept 34.1 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
11 Sept 36.1 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Sept 36.3 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Sept 35.6 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Sept 31.5 °C 62 % 28 km/h 11.3 mm Very low 1
15 Sept 31.6 °C 58 % 26 km/h 4.1 mm Very low 2
16 Sept 27.2 °C 80 % 27 km/h 12.3 mm Very low 0
17 Sept 34.1 °C 45 % 20 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 2
18 Sept after 33.7 °C 48 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
19 Sept after 32.9 °C 53 % 28 km/h 7.7 mm Very low 1
20 Sept after 35.1 °C 51 % 28 km/h 1.2 mm Very low 4
21 Sept after 35.2 °C 51 % 29 km/h 10.6 mm Very low 1
22 Sept after 33.1 °C 56 % 24 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 1
23 Sept after 35.5 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm Low 7
24 Sept after 34.4 °C 55 % 25 km/h 4.7 mm Very low 1
25 Sept after 32.3 °C 56 % 22 km/h 9.2 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2018
After · 24 Sept 2018

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

Detections table · 528Every 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 Aripuanã fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2018 and 17 September 2018: 19 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 5,215 hectares (52.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aripuanã (5,250 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % 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

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.

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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.