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Formosa fire, 7 September 2019 Formosa

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2019, 17:13 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2019 in Formosa, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,571 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 548 with a page). Number 30 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
28,571ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
7 Sept 2019 – 25 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Sept
2019
Heat detections
1,059
in a single hotspot: 96 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
7.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept25 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151617181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
49km/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: 1.3 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,902 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Formosa 115,901 inhabitants where it started
    28,704 ha reached on 2 Sept
    4.9 %

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 Sept 33.8 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Sept 33.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept 34.7 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept 34.7 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 32.2 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept 30.0 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.8 mm High 28
8 Sept 31.3 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Sept 32.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Sept 33.1 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept 34.2 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept 35.2 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept 35.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept 35.7 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Sept 33.3 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Sept 33.1 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept 33.5 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept 35.4 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept 36.6 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Sept 36.7 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Sept 37.3 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Sept 35.3 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept 34.5 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Sept 33.2 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Sept 33.3 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Sept after 32.4 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Sept after 32.1 °C 39 % 28 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2019
After · 2 Oct 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 · 1,059Every 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 Formosa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 September 2019 and 25 September 2019: 19 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 28,571 hectares (285.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Formosa (28,704 ha, 4.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.

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.

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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.