Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Grajaú fire, July 2022 Grajaú

Out · last detection 16 Jul 2022, 17:16 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2022 in Grajaú, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,258 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 513th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 602 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
3,258ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
12 Jul 2022 – 15 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Jul
2022
Heat detections
88
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
751MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul15 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
44km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,252 ha in 2017, 2,900 ha in 2019, 2 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,095 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Grajaú 73,872 inhabitants where it started
    3,281 ha reached on 12 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)
12 Jul 32.9 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jul 33.7 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Jul 31.1 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jul 33.0 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul after 33.0 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Jul after 33.3 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jul after 32.7 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jul after 32.7 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Jul after 32.8 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jul after 32.7 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul after 32.9 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jul after 32.5 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul after 33.8 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Jul after 33.1 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul after 32.5 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jul after 32.5 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jul after 33.0 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jul after 33.4 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jul after 32.3 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2022
After · 22 Jul 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.

Detections table · 88Every 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 Grajaú fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 July 2022 and 15 July 2022: 4 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 3,258 hectares (32.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Grajaú (3,281 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.