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Boca do Acre fire, 14 August 2021 Boca do Acre

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2021, 18:13 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2021 in Boca do Acre, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,032 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 159th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 397 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
5,032ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
14 Aug 2021 – 26 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Aug
2021
Heat detections
366
in a single hotspot: 329 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
7.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
36km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.7 mm on 30 Aug.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 133 ha in 2016, 252 ha in 2017, 2,747 ha in 2018, 1,535 ha in 2019, 586 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,180 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Boca do Acre 35,447 inhabitants where it started
    5,062 ha reached on 9 Aug
    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)
9 Aug 34.8 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Aug 34.7 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug 34.7 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug 31.4 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Aug 32.2 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug 33.8 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Aug 33.6 °C 37 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Aug 35.5 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Aug 35.0 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Aug 35.8 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Aug 35.1 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Aug 33.9 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Aug 35.4 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
22 Aug 35.0 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
23 Aug 35.9 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Aug 36.4 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Aug 37.0 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Aug 37.4 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
27 Aug after 33.7 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.9 mm High 23
28 Aug after 32.6 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
29 Aug after 33.2 °C 54 % 32 km/h 5.0 mm Low 7
30 Aug after 31.6 °C 59 % 31 km/h 7.7 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Aug 2021
After · 2 Sept 2021

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 · 366Every 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 Boca do Acre fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 August 2021 and 26 August 2021: 13 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 5,032 hectares (50.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Boca do Acre (5,062 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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.

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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.