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Cujubim fire, August 2019 Cujubim

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2019, 17:47 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2019 in Cujubim, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,437 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 148th largest in Rondônia since 2016 (of 300 with a page). Number 553 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
4,437ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
11 Aug 2019 – 18 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Aug
2019
Heat detections
283
in a single hotspot: 192 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
44km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.0 mm on 25 Aug.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,314 ha in 2016, 1,330 ha in 2017, 1,327 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,953 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cujubim 14,863 inhabitants where it started
    4,462 ha reached on 4 Aug
    1.2 %

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)
4 Aug 31.1 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug 32.9 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Aug 34.4 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug 35.5 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug 33.8 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug 35.7 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug 37.1 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Aug 37.3 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 37.1 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug 37.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Aug 34.2 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Aug 35.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug 33.8 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug 34.4 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Aug 33.7 °C 45 % 23 km/h 2.1 mm Low 11
19 Aug after 35.0 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
20 Aug after 34.9 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
21 Aug after 36.1 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Aug after 35.7 °C 32 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Aug after 36.2 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Aug after 35.6 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
25 Aug after 33.4 °C 46 % 31 km/h 9.0 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2019
After · 25 Aug 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 · 283Every 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 Cujubim fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 August 2019 and 18 August 2019: 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 4,437 hectares (44.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cujubim (4,462 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.