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Barra fire, September 2018 Barra

Out · last detection 4 Oct 2018, 17:08 UTC

The fire started on 29 September 2018 in Barra, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,691 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 367th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 193 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
3,691ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
29 Sept 2018 – 4 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Sept
2018
Heat detections
133
in a single hotspot: 140 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Sept4 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

29301234

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
35km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 156 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Barra 51,092 inhabitants where it started
    3,721 ha reached on 29 Sept
    0.3 %

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 Sept 38.3 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Sept 38.2 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Oct 37.4 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Oct 36.6 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Oct 36.8 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Oct 38.6 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Oct after 36.4 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Oct after 36.7 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Oct after 37.0 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Oct after 37.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Oct after 37.8 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Oct after 37.8 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Oct after 38.1 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Oct after 37.8 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Oct after 36.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Oct after 38.3 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Sept 2018
After · 11 Oct 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 · 133Every 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 Barra fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 September 2018 and 4 October 2018: 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 3,691 hectares (36.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barra (3,721 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.