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Ibotirama fire, September 2021 Ibotirama

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2021, 15:59 UTC

The fire started on 15 September 2021 in Ibotirama, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,447 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 283th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 467 with a page). Number 471 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ibotirama · 2016Ibotirama · 2026Muquém do São Francisco · 2024Muquém do São Francisco · 2022

Burnt area
4,447ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
15 Sept 2021 – 6 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Sept
2021
Heat detections
226
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
110MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Sept6 Oct
5 Oct 2021

How it evolved, day by day

16 Sept 2021 · 29 MW · 3 19 Sept 2021 · 63 MW · 3 20 Sept 2021 · 4 MW · 1 21 Sept 2021 · 263 MW · 13 22 Sept 2021 · 400 MW · 40 23 Sept 2021 · 657 MW · 107 24 Sept 2021 · 21 MW · 4 25 Sept 2021 · 16 MW · 4 26 Sept 2021 · 52 MW · 8 28 Sept 2021 · 17 MW · 4 29 Sept 2021 · 63 MW · 6 30 Sept 2021 · 41 MW · 7 1 Oct 2021 · 25 MW · 5 2 Oct 2021 · 56 MW · 8 3 Oct 2021 · 77 MW · 7 4 Oct 2021 · 45 MW · 3 5 Oct 2021 · 46 MW · 3
16 Sept 21 Sept 23 Sept 24 Sept 28 Sept 1 Oct 4 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

40°high
41km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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 2.8% of the area of London (44 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. Ibotirama 26,309 inhabitants where it started
    4,476 ha reached on 16 Sept
    2.6 %

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 area0.62 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.62 hectares of built-up land and about 50 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)
16 Sept 37.4 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Sept 35.4 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Sept 35.2 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Sept 37.6 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Sept 38.1 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Sept 38.2 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Sept 40.4 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Sept 35.9 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Sept 35.1 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Sept 34.3 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Sept 35.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept 35.9 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Sept 36.6 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Sept 37.3 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Sept 38.0 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Oct 37.8 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Oct 38.6 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Oct 38.6 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Oct 38.7 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Oct 39.2 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Oct 38.6 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Oct after 38.6 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Oct after 40.3 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Oct after 38.7 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Oct after 38.5 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Oct after 33.0 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Oct after 36.2 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44
13 Oct after 31.8 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
14 Oct after 37.0 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Oct after 36.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Sept 2021
After · 13 Oct 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 · 226Every 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 Ibotirama fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 September 2021 to 6 October 2021 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 September 2021 to 29 September 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,447 hectares (44.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ibotirama (4,476 ha, 2.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 · 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: 29 September 2021 → 6 October 2021.
  2. Start date: 21 September 2021 → 15 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 21 September 2021 to 29 September 2021. 226 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.