Corrente fire, July 2023 Corrente, Cristalândia do Piauí
The fire started on 31 July 2023 in Corrente, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,813 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 380th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 804 with a page). Number 186 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,813ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 31 Jul 2023 – 14 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 31 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 164
- in a single hotspot: 86 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 179MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,548 ha in 2017, 654 ha in 2018, 3,301 ha in 2020, 1,035 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,607 ha that had burned before.
- 2,747 ha Corrente fire, September 2020 8,973 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,548 ha Cristalândia do Piauí fire, October 2017 10,425 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,035 ha Corrente fire, September 2021 4,135 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
3,682 ha reached on 31 Jul1.2 %
-
Cristalândia do Piauí 7,356 inhabitants1,163 ha reached on 31 Jul1.0 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Jul | 31.6 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Aug | 31.4 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Aug | 30.9 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Aug | 31.9 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 4 Aug | 32.3 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Aug | 31.9 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Aug | 32.4 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 7 Aug | 33.0 °C | 25 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Aug | 33.6 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 9 Aug | 32.7 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Aug | 32.0 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 11 Aug | 32.0 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Aug | 32.1 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Aug | 31.3 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Aug | 30.7 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 15 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 27 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 28 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Aug after | 34.6 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 21 Aug after | 35.7 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Aug after | 35.1 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 7 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 164Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,425 haCristalândia do PiauíOctober 2017 · 17 days · 3 km away
- 8,973 haCorrente28 September 2020 · 12 days · 5 km away
- 10,276 haFormosa do Rio Preto30 August 2026 · 7 days · 30 km away
- 19,491 haCorrente4 September 2021 · 23 days · 34 km away
- 17,227 haFormosa do Rio Preto13 September 2025 · 23 days · 35 km away
- 17,879 haCorrenteSeptember 2026 · 14 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Corrente fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 July 2023 to 14 August 2023 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 August 2023 to 14 August 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,813 hectares (48.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Corrente (3,682 ha, 1.2 %); Cristalândia do Piauí (1,163 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 7 August 2023 → 31 July 2023.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 August 2023 to 14 August 2023. 164 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.
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.