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Buenópolis fire, October 2022 Buenópolis, Lassance, Augusto de Lima

Out · last detection 18 Oct 2022, 16:10 UTC

The fire started on 11 October 2022 in Buenópolis, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,384 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 31th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 150 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
8,384ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
11 Oct 2022 – 18 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
11 Oct
2022
Heat detections
432
in a single hotspot: 286 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
11.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Oct18 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,122 ha in 2019, 417 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Buenópolis where it started
    4,168 ha reached on 11 Oct
    2.6 %
  2. Lassance 7,124 inhabitants
    2,399 ha reached on 12 Oct
    0.7 %
  3. Augusto de Lima 4,538 inhabitants
    1,866 ha reached on 14 Oct
    1.5 %

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 Oct 30.8 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Oct 30.0 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Oct 29.3 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
14 Oct 28.6 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Oct 27.1 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Oct 27.5 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Oct 28.7 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Oct 29.6 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Oct after 29.0 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Oct after 28.4 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Oct after 27.3 °C 42 % 34 km/h 1.8 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Oct 2022
After · 25 Oct 2022

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 15 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 174 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 70: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak174 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM10249 µg/m³
Optical depth0.96
9101112131415161718192021
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 · 432Every 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 Buenópolis fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 October 2022 and 18 October 2022: 8 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 8,384 hectares (83.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Buenópolis (4,168 ha, 2.6 %); Lassance (2,399 ha, 0.7 %); Augusto de Lima (1,866 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.

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.