How long did the Barra fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2022 and 22 October 2022: 26 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 35,210 hectares (352.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Barra (35,452 ha, 3.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2022-09-27 → 2022-10-22

Barra fire, 27 September 2022 Barra

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2022, 16:19 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2022 in Barra, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 35,210 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 9 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area: 35,210ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 27 Sept 2022 – 22 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 27 Sept; 2022
Heat detections: 1,559; in a single hotspot: 656 MW
Danger at start: 52; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 53.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Oct 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept22 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

272829301234567891011121314151617181920212223

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

49km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.3 mm on 24 Oct.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 337 ha in 2017, 1,112 ha in 2018, 969 ha in 2020, 2,469 ha in 2021.

2,469 ha Wanderley fire, September 2021 216,996 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Barra 51,092 inhabitants where it started

35,452 ha reached on 27 Sept

3.1 %

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)
27 Sept	35.9 °C	11 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
28 Sept	35.9 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
29 Sept	37.0 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
30 Sept	36.9 °C	15 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
1 Oct	36.1 °C	20 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
2 Oct	36.7 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
3 Oct	36.1 °C	22 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
4 Oct	37.6 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
5 Oct	37.9 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
6 Oct	37.2 °C	13 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
7 Oct	37.9 °C	14 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
8 Oct	37.5 °C	19 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
9 Oct	38.9 °C	10 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
10 Oct	36.7 °C	17 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
11 Oct	37.8 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
12 Oct	35.0 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
13 Oct	35.4 °C	16 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
14 Oct	37.3 °C	16 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
15 Oct	35.8 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
16 Oct	35.9 °C	15 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
17 Oct	36.5 °C	17 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
18 Oct	36.5 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
19 Oct	36.5 °C	11 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
20 Oct	36.7 °C	14 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
21 Oct	37.9 °C	17 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
22 Oct	37.1 °C	22 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
23 Oct after	36.1 °C	27 %	31 km/h	1.0 mm	High 34
24 Oct after	35.2 °C	32 %	45 km/h	11.3 mm	Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Sept 2022

After · 29 Oct 2022

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 4 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1086 µg/m³

Optical depth0.66

WHO 15

25262728293012345678910111213141516171819202122232425

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 1,559Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Barra fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2022 and 22 October 2022: 26 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 35,210 hectares (352.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Barra (35,452 ha, 3.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned