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Franciscópolis fire, September 2021 Franciscópolis, Água Boa, Malacacheta

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2021, 04:10 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2021 in Franciscópolis, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,187 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 197th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 750 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Água Boa · 2019Santa Maria do Suaçuí · 2024São José da Safira · 2021

Burnt area
3,187ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
11 Sept 2021 – 22 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
11 Sept
2021
Heat detections
144
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
179MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept22 Sept
22 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

11 Sept 2021 · 6 MW · 2 13 Sept 2021 · 27 MW · 4 15 Sept 2021 · 220 MW · 16 18 Sept 2021 · 381 MW · 26 19 Sept 2021 · 212 MW · 19 20 Sept 2021 · 103 MW · 30 21 Sept 2021 · 482 MW · 45 22 Sept 2021 · 4 MW · 2
11 Sept 15 Sept 19 Sept 21 Sept

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
39km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 9 Oct.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,743 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2% of the area of London (32 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. Franciscópolis 5,034 inhabitants where it started
    2,994 ha reached on 11 Sept
    4.2 %
  2. Água Boa 12,589 inhabitants
    128 ha
    0.1 %
  3. Malacacheta 17,516 inhabitants
    83 ha
    0.1 %

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 area1.5 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.5 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
11 Sept 34.4 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Sept 33.5 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Sept 34.8 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Sept 36.0 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Sept 36.8 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Sept 32.4 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Sept 31.0 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept 32.1 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Sept 35.5 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Sept 29.8 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Sept 36.8 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Sept 28.1 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Sept after 25.1 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Sept after 26.6 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Sept after 27.6 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Sept after 32.2 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Sept after 30.2 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Sept after 32.2 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
29 Sept after 34.3 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Sept after 33.8 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 37
1 Oct after 36.1 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Oct after 35.9 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
3 Oct after 36.6 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Oct after 36.3 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Oct after 36.9 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Oct after 29.2 °C 54 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
7 Oct after 35.1 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
8 Oct after 26.5 °C 62 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
9 Oct after 24.7 °C 65 % 33 km/h 1.7 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2021
After · 29 Sept 2021

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 · 144Every 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 Franciscópolis fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 September 2021 to 22 September 2021 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 September 2021 to 22 September 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,187 hectares (31.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Franciscópolis (2,994 ha, 4.2 %); Água Boa (128 ha, 0.1 %); Malacacheta (83 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 18 September 2021 → 11 September 2021.

RSS Changes to this page

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 18 September 2021 to 22 September 2021. 144 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.