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Cotegipe fire, November 2019 Cotegipe

Out · last detection 15 Nov 2019, 16:36 UTC

The fire started on 2 November 2019 in Cotegipe, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,407 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 286th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 564 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
4,407ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
2 Nov 2019 – 15 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Nov
2019
Heat detections
150
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Nov 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Nov15 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

23456789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
36km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.8 mm on 17 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Cotegipe 13,063 inhabitants where it started
    4,435 ha reached on 2 Nov
    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)
2 Nov 36.9 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Nov 37.2 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Nov 38.7 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Nov 36.4 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Nov 39.1 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Nov 39.7 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Nov 38.6 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Nov 39.1 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Nov 38.4 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Nov 39.5 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Nov 39.8 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Nov 38.2 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Nov 38.9 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Nov 38.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Nov after 35.5 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.9 mm High 25
17 Nov after 31.4 °C 49 % 26 km/h 8.8 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Oct 2019
After · 22 Nov 2019

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 · 150Every 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 Cotegipe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 November 2019 and 15 November 2019: 14 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 4,407 hectares (44.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cotegipe (4,435 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 36 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.