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Barra fire, 12 September 2023 Barra

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2023, 04:28 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2023 in Barra, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,163 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 126th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 71 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
8,163ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
12 Sept 2023 – 27 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Sept
2023
Heat detections
376
in a single hotspot: 155 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
358MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

27 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept27 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12 Sept 2023 · 478 MW · 12 13 Sept 2023 · 280 MW · 7 14 Sept 2023 · 149 MW · 4 15 Sept 2023 · 440 MW · 21 16 Sept 2023 · 205 MW · 34 17 Sept 2023 · 1,008 MW · 91 18 Sept 2023 · 1,840 MW · 51 19 Sept 2023 · 430 MW · 26 20 Sept 2023 · 149 MW · 12 21 Sept 2023 · 220 MW · 27 22 Sept 2023 · 51 MW · 11 23 Sept 2023 · 256 MW · 26 24 Sept 2023 · 48 MW · 8 25 Sept 2023 · 150 MW · 14 26 Sept 2023 · 18 MW · 3 27 Sept 2023 · 9 MW · 4
12 Sept 15 Sept 18 Sept 21 Sept 24 Sept 27 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
41km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 74 ha in 2018, 1,425 ha in 2020, 1,337 ha in 2021, 742 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,337 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Barra 51,092 inhabitants where it started
    8,219 ha reached on 11 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)
11 Sept 35.4 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Sept 36.1 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Sept 37.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Sept 37.3 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Sept 38.9 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Sept 37.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Sept 37.0 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Sept 35.6 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Sept 36.0 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Sept 36.3 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Sept 36.0 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Sept 36.5 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Sept 37.8 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Sept 38.7 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Sept 39.0 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Sept 38.6 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Sept 36.2 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Sept after 38.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Sept after 39.7 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
30 Sept after 38.8 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Oct after 38.8 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Oct after 38.2 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Oct after 38.3 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Oct after 37.9 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Oct after 37.0 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Oct after 37.6 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Oct after 37.9 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Oct after 38.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Oct after 37.6 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Oct after 38.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Oct after 37.9 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Oct after 38.2 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Oct after 39.5 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Oct after 39.4 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2023
After · 4 Oct 2023

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 28 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1026 µg/m³
Optical depth0.54
101112131415161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 376Every 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 12 September 2023 and 27 September 2023: 16 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 8,163 hectares (81.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barra (8,219 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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
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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.