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Corrente fire, August 2023 Corrente, Cristalândia do Piauí

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2023, 17:28 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2023 in Corrente, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 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 803 with a page). Number 186 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
4,813ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
7 Aug 2023 – 14 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
7 Aug
2023
Heat detections
164
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
42km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

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.

What happened to each town

  1. Corrente 27,278 inhabitants where it started
    3,682 ha reached on 31 Jul
    1.2 %
  2. Cristalândia do Piauí 7,356 inhabitants
    1,163 ha reached on 31 Jul
    1.0 %

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)
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.

Before · 31 Jul 2023
After · 21 Aug 2023

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 7 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1015 µg/m³
Optical depth0.21
567891011121314151617
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 · 164Every 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 Corrente fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 August 2023 and 14 August 2023: 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 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

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.