Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Aripuanã fire, September 2018 Aripuanã

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2018, 05:05 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2018 in Aripuanã, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,850 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1488th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 174 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
3,850ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
5 Sept 2018 – 13 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2018
Heat detections
190
in a single hotspot: 228 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

567891011

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
42km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.6 mm on 16 Sept.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,131 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,999 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Aripuanã 25,766 inhabitants where it started
    3,877 ha reached on 4 Sept
    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)
29 Aug 32.6 °C 49 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Aug 33.4 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
31 Aug 35.6 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Sept 34.2 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
2 Sept 33.7 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Sept 32.4 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Sept 31.4 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Sept 33.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Sept 35.9 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Sept 34.8 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Sept 36.2 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Sept 36.1 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Sept 33.9 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
11 Sept 35.5 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Sept 35.8 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Sept 34.9 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Sept after 30.6 °C 64 % 28 km/h 12.3 mm Very low 1
15 Sept after 30.6 °C 59 % 24 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 2
16 Sept after 26.4 °C 87 % 30 km/h 13.6 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2018
After · 20 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 · 190Every 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 5 September 2018 and 13 September 2018: 9 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 3,850 hectares (38.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aripuanã (3,877 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.