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Barra fire, 23 September 2019 Buritirama, Barra

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2019, 03:43 UTC

The fire started on 23 September 2019 in Barra, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,108 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 93th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 171 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
10,108ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
23 Sept 2019 – 15 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
23 Sept
2019
Heat detections
452
in a single hotspot: 139 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Sept15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627282930123456789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
49km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.7 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 389 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Buritirama 19,589 inhabitants
    6,934 ha reached on 24 Sept
    1.7 %
  2. Barra 51,092 inhabitants where it started
    3,227 ha reached on 23 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)
23 Sept 33.0 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Sept 32.4 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Sept 32.9 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Sept 33.5 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Sept 34.9 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Sept 34.5 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Sept 31.1 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 38
30 Sept 32.8 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm High 27
1 Oct 33.3 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Oct 33.5 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Oct 32.6 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Oct 33.5 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Oct 31.1 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Oct 32.8 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Oct 34.1 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Oct 32.9 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Oct 33.6 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Oct 33.1 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Oct 32.6 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Oct 32.9 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Oct 32.9 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Oct 34.0 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct 33.5 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Oct after 32.7 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Oct after 32.1 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Oct after 33.0 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Oct after 34.4 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Oct after 33.7 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Oct after 33.0 °C 43 % 30 km/h 4.7 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Sept 2019
After · 22 Oct 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 · 452Every 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 23 September 2019 and 15 October 2019: 23 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 10,108 hectares (101.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Buritirama (6,934 ha, 1.7 %); Barra (3,227 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.