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Curimatá fire, July 2019 Curimatá, Parnaguá

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2019, 16:37 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2019 in Curimatá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,373 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 666th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 804 with a page). Number 811 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Curimatá · 2022Avelino Lopes · 2021Parnaguá · 2021Júlio Borges · 2022

Burnt area
3,373ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
14 Jul 2019 – 25 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
14 Jul
2019
Heat detections
183
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
88MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul25 Jul
26 Jul 2019

How it evolved, day by day

14 Jul 2019 · 82 MW · 13 15 Jul 2019 · 71 MW · 8 16 Jul 2019 · 97 MW · 25 17 Jul 2019 · 239 MW · 24 18 Jul 2019 · 128 MW · 48 19 Jul 2019 · 8 MW · 4 20 Jul 2019 · 48 MW · 15 21 Jul 2019 · 127 MW · 15 22 Jul 2019 · 191 MW · 15 23 Jul 2019 · 125 MW · 7 24 Jul 2019 · 3 MW · 2 25 Jul 2019 · 13 MW · 4 26 Jul 2019 · 16 MW · 3
14 Jul 16 Jul 17 Jul 18 Jul 20 Jul 22 Jul 24 Jul 26 Jul

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
54km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.1% of the area of London (34 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Curimatá 11,270 inhabitants where it started
    2,051 ha reached on 14 Jul
    0.9 %
  2. Parnaguá 10,103 inhabitants
    1,345 ha reached on 15 Jul
    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)
14 Jul 33.7 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jul 34.3 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul 34.3 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Jul 34.9 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jul 32.9 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Jul 31.1 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jul 29.1 °C 35 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jul 31.2 °C 29 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Jul 31.8 °C 34 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jul 33.5 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul 33.6 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jul 33.1 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul after 32.3 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul after 30.7 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul after 32.6 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Jul after 33.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul after 33.6 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jul after 34.3 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Aug after 34.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Aug after 34.7 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Aug after 35.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug after 35.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Aug after 32.7 °C 35 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2019
After · 1 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 · 183Every 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 Curimatá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 July 2019 and 25 July 2019: 12 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 3,373 hectares (33.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Curimatá (2,051 ha, 0.9 %); Parnaguá (1,345 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 54 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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 183 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.