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Flores do Piauí fire, September 2022 Flores do Piauí, Itaueira

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2022, 16:20 UTC

The fire started on 22 September 2022 in Flores do Piauí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,981 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 298th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 665 with a page). Number 290 in Brazil in 2022, of 682.

Burnt area
4,981ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
22 Sept 2022 – 23 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
22 Sept
2022
Heat detections
232
in a single hotspot: 234 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
129MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Sept23 Oct
23 Oct 2022

How it evolved, day by day

22 Sept 2022 · 10 MW · 2 23 Sept 2022 · 5 MW · 1 26 Sept 2022 · 16 MW · 2 27 Sept 2022 · 24 MW · 3 28 Sept 2022 · 36 MW · 5 29 Sept 2022 · 45 MW · 8 1 Oct 2022 · 16 MW · 2 2 Oct 2022 · 24 MW · 5 3 Oct 2022 · 1,621 MW · 15 4 Oct 2022 · 578 MW · 42 5 Oct 2022 · 187 MW · 42 6 Oct 2022 · 179 MW · 23 7 Oct 2022 · 33 MW · 5 8 Oct 2022 · 13 MW · 1 9 Oct 2022 · 77 MW · 11 10 Oct 2022 · 43 MW · 8 11 Oct 2022 · 217 MW · 11 12 Oct 2022 · 61 MW · 10 13 Oct 2022 · 12 MW · 4 14 Oct 2022 · 3 MW · 2 15 Oct 2022 · 11 MW · 3 16 Oct 2022 · 29 MW · 7 17 Oct 2022 · 60 MW · 7 18 Oct 2022 · 42 MW · 10 21 Oct 2022 · 3 MW · 2 23 Oct 2022 · 4 MW · 1
22 Sept 3 Oct 13 Oct 21 Oct

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
50km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 25 Oct.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8 ha in 2016, 4,176 ha in 2019, 890 ha in 2020, 326 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,681 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.1% of the area of London (50 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. Flores do Piauí 4,414 inhabitants where it started
    2,923 ha reached on 22 Sept
    3.1 %
  2. Itaueira 10,323 inhabitants
    2,089 ha reached on 26 Sept
    0.8 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with 60 days without rain: 55 % of the area in Brazil

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
22 Sept 36.1 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Sept 36.7 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Sept 35.0 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.9 mm High 25
25 Sept 33.5 °C 36 % 38 km/h 6.3 mm Low 10
26 Sept 34.7 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Sept 35.7 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Sept 36.3 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Sept 36.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Sept 37.0 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Oct 36.5 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Oct 36.8 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Oct 37.1 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Oct 36.5 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Oct 38.1 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Oct 37.6 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Oct 38.0 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Oct 38.2 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Oct 38.3 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Oct 37.7 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Oct 37.2 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Oct 36.6 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Oct 36.4 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Oct 36.8 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Oct 37.8 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Oct 36.8 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Oct 36.9 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Oct 37.0 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Oct 36.8 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
20 Oct 37.1 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Oct 37.9 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Oct 37.1 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Oct 34.6 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.6 mm High 33
24 Oct after 36.2 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
25 Oct after 30.8 °C 52 % 26 km/h 2.4 mm Low 10

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 41.7, a minimum humidity of 28% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 21.

FWI at the start 41.7
Minimum humidity 28 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Nazaré do Piauí fire, September 2018
36,039 ha 41 days FWI 41.6 Min. humidity 28 % 19 km away, in 2018

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.2 mm on 16 Oct.

What happened to them

13 days
median duration
4,585 ha
median area
14 %
went past 10,000 ha
3.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 7 of 21 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (4,981 ha against a median of 4,585 ha) and lasted 32 days, against 13 days.

In 14 of 21, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.1 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.4 mmfirst rain
25 Oct2 days after it ended
50km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 23 Oct, and on 25 Oct 2.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 7 of 21, with a median of 3.1 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Sept 2022
After · 30 Oct 2022

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 5 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 151 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak151 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10216 µg/m³
Optical depth0.87
24 Sept30 Sept6 Oct12 Oct18 Oct
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 · 232Every 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 Flores do Piauí fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 September 2022 to 23 October 2022 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 September 2022 to 18 October 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,981 hectares (49.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Flores do Piauí (2,923 ha, 3.1 %); Itaueira (2,089 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, class Extreme.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 21. Their median duration was 13 days and their median area 4,585 ha; 14 % went past 10,000 ha. In 14 of 21, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.1 mm.

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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 18 October 2022 → 23 October 2022.
  2. Start date: 26 September 2022 → 22 September 2022.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 26 September 2022 to 18 October 2022. 232 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.