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Barcelos fire, March 2019 Barcelos

Out · last detection 28 Mar 2019, 17:31 UTC

The fire started on 11 March 2019 in Barcelos, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,163 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 406th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 896 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
3,163ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
11 Mar 2019 – 27 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Mar
2019
Heat detections
139
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
869MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Mar27 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

111314151618192021232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
40km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.7 mm on 29 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Barcelos 18,834 inhabitants where it started
    3,186 ha reached on 6 Mar
    0.0 %

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)
6 Mar 36.2 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Mar 37.4 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Mar 36.1 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
9 Mar 35.9 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Mar 37.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Mar 36.2 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
12 Mar 31.1 °C 57 % 31 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 4
13 Mar 35.2 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
14 Mar 35.1 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Mar 34.2 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
16 Mar 34.1 °C 48 % 37 km/h 2.1 mm Low 8
17 Mar 33.8 °C 47 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 14
18 Mar 36.5 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Mar 38.2 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Mar 37.6 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Mar 34.6 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
22 Mar 33.9 °C 50 % 30 km/h 2.5 mm Low 6
23 Mar 34.6 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 13
24 Mar 36.7 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Mar 34.7 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
26 Mar 34.0 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 15
27 Mar 35.3 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
28 Mar after 35.6 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 19
29 Mar after 31.3 °C 63 % 36 km/h 6.7 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Mar 2019
After · 3 Apr 2019

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 · 139Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Barcelos fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 March 2019 and 27 March 2019: 17 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 3,163 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barcelos (3,186 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.