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Bertolínia fire, September 2024 Sebastião Leal, Bertolínia, Manoel Emídio

Out · last detection 6 Sept 2024, 15:54 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2024 in Bertolínia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,557 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 610th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 804 with a page). Number 1050 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
3,557ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
1 Sept 2024 – 5 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
1 Sept
2024
Heat detections
152
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept5 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

123456

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 302 ha in 2017, 3,155 ha in 2018, 1,734 ha in 2020, 435 ha in 2021, 2,521 ha in 2022, 771 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,451 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sebastião Leal 4,446 inhabitants
    1,934 ha reached on 2 Sept
    0.6 %
  2. Bertolínia 5,562 inhabitants where it started
    1,411 ha reached on 1 Sept
    1.1 %
  3. Manoel Emídio 5,209 inhabitants
    237 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
1 Sept 34.0 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Sept 34.2 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Sept 36.4 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Sept 36.1 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Sept 35.4 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Sept after 35.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Sept after 35.5 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Sept after 35.1 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
9 Sept after 34.1 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Sept after 35.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Sept after 35.7 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Sept after 35.6 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Sept after 34.6 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Sept after 34.9 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Sept after 36.0 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Sept after 37.5 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2024
After · 12 Sept 2024

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 3 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.22
303112345678
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 · 152Every 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 Bertolínia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2024 and 5 September 2024: 5 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 3,557 hectares (35.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sebastião Leal (1,934 ha, 0.6 %); Bertolínia (1,411 ha, 1.1 %); Manoel Emídio (237 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.