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BR · Brazil · –

Campinaçu fire, September 2021 Campinaçu

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2021, 17:14 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2021 in Campinaçu, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,682 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 209th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 488 with a page). Number 335 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
5,682ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
9 Sept 2021 – 15 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Sept
2021
Heat detections
222
in a single hotspot: 134 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
364MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept15 Sept
15 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

9 Sept 2021 · 163 MW · 20 10 Sept 2021 · 137 MW · 39 11 Sept 2021 · 381 MW · 49 12 Sept 2021 · 585 MW · 30 13 Sept 2021 · 1,221 MW · 69 14 Sept 2021 · 47 MW · 11 15 Sept 2021 · 12 MW · 4
9 Sept 11 Sept 13 Sept 15 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

35°high
34km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,230 ha in 2016, 2,805 ha in 2017, 789 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,415 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.6% of the area of London (57 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Campinaçu 3,708 inhabitants where it started
    5,718 ha reached on 9 Sept
    2.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.41 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.41 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with 60 days without rain: 55 % of the area in Brazil

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
9 Sept 34.3 °C 23 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept 33.5 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept 34.6 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 33.7 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept 32.6 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept 32.4 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Sept 33.7 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept after 34.0 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Sept after 33.0 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept after 33.8 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Sept after 33.9 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Sept after 34.7 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Sept after 37.5 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Sept after 35.5 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Sept after 34.1 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Sept after 32.0 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Sept after 32.1 °C 39 % 21 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 11

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 35.0, a minimum humidity of 23% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 34.

FWI at the start 35.0
Minimum humidity 23 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Niquelândia fire, August 2017
9,755 ha 13 days FWI 34.3 Min. humidity 23 % 63 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

10 days
median duration
5,913 ha
median area
24 %
went past 10,000 ha
3.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 8 of 34 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (5,682 ha against a median of 5,913 ha) and lasted 7 days, against 10 days.

In 26 of 34, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.9 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.5 mmfirst rain
25 Sept10 days after it ended
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 15 Sept, and on 25 Sept 2.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 8 of 34, with a median of 3.9 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Sept 2021
After · 22 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 · 222Every 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 Campinaçu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2021 and 15 September 2021: 7 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 5,682 hectares (56.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Campinaçu (5,718 ha, 2.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 34. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 5,913 ha; 24 % went past 10,000 ha. In 26 of 34, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.9 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 222 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.