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Cocos fire, 8 October 2022 Cocos

Out · last detection 14 Oct 2022, 17:27 UTC

The fire started on 8 October 2022 in Cocos, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,634 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 375th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 480 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
3,634ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
8 Oct 2022 – 13 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Oct
2022
Heat detections
133
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Oct13 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314

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
45km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 23 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Cocos 19,151 inhabitants where it started
    3,655 ha reached on 8 Oct
    0.4 %

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)
8 Oct 34.7 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Oct 34.2 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Oct 33.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Oct 33.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Oct 32.1 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Oct 31.6 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Oct after 32.7 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Oct after 32.4 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Oct after 31.7 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Oct after 32.5 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Oct after 33.5 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Oct after 32.9 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Oct after 33.6 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Oct after 32.1 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Oct after 31.3 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Oct after 29.0 °C 49 % 29 km/h 4.0 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Oct 2022
After · 20 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 13 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1035 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
678910111213141516
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 · 133Every 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 Cocos fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 October 2022 and 13 October 2022: 6 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 3,634 hectares (36.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cocos (3,655 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.

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.