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Barra fire, October 2018 Barra

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2018, 17:02 UTC

The fire started on 6 October 2018 in Barra, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,837 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 95th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 34 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
9,837ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
6 Oct 2018 – 15 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Oct
2018
Heat detections
507
in a single hotspot: 174 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
9.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Oct15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112131415

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
37km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.5 mm on 16 Oct.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,466 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Barra 51,092 inhabitants where it started
    9,913 ha reached on 6 Oct
    0.9 %

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 Oct 36.7 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Oct 36.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Oct 36.9 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Oct 37.8 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Oct 37.8 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Oct 38.0 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Oct 37.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Oct 36.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Oct 38.3 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Oct 37.5 °C 32 % 26 km/h 4.6 mm Moderate 15
16 Oct after 30.3 °C 52 % 36 km/h 8.5 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Sept 2018
After · 22 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 · 507Every 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 6 October 2018 and 15 October 2018: 10 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 9,837 hectares (98.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barra (9,913 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.