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Barra fire, September 2020 Barra

Out · last detection 4 Oct 2020, 17:02 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2020 in Barra, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,038 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 129th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 272 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
8,038ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
16 Sept 2020 – 4 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Sept
2020
Heat detections
436
in a single hotspot: 230 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
11.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept4 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122232425262829301234

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
37km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.8 mm on 11 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Barra 51,092 inhabitants where it started
    8,097 ha reached on 16 Sept
    0.7 %

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)
16 Sept 35.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Sept 36.0 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept 37.1 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Sept 39.4 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Sept 37.8 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Sept 37.8 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Sept 37.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Sept 36.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Sept 36.7 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Sept 35.7 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Sept 36.0 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Sept 37.5 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Sept 39.0 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Sept 39.2 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Sept 38.6 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Oct 37.5 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Oct 37.9 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Oct 38.0 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Oct 39.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Oct after 38.2 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Oct after 38.5 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Oct after 40.2 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Oct after 40.8 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Oct after 38.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Oct after 38.0 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 49
11 Oct after 35.4 °C 35 % 23 km/h 7.8 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2020
After · 11 Oct 2020

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 · 436Every 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 16 September 2020 and 4 October 2020: 19 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 8,038 hectares (80.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barra (8,097 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
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.