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Itacajá fire, August 2019 Itacajá, Centenário

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2019, 04:08 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2019 in Itacajá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,000 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 253th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1243 with a page). Number 199 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Itacajá · 2020Santa Maria do Tocantins · 2020Itacajá · 2017Goiatins · 2025

Burnt area
9,000ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
28 Aug 2019 – 16 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2019
Heat detections
408
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
158MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug16 Sept
17 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

28 Aug 2019 · 145 MW · 21 29 Aug 2019 · 46 MW · 9 30 Aug 2019 · 50 MW · 10 31 Aug 2019 · 15 MW · 3 1 Sept 2019 · 119 MW · 6 2 Sept 2019 · 5 MW · 1 4 Sept 2019 · 135 MW · 18 5 Sept 2019 · 84 MW · 11 6 Sept 2019 · 721 MW · 59 7 Sept 2019 · 593 MW · 62 8 Sept 2019 · 177 MW · 28 9 Sept 2019 · 163 MW · 35 10 Sept 2019 · 160 MW · 53 11 Sept 2019 · 242 MW · 24 12 Sept 2019 · 268 MW · 30 13 Sept 2019 · 175 MW · 18 14 Sept 2019 · 6 MW · 1 15 Sept 2019 · 7 MW · 2 16 Sept 2019 · 55 MW · 16 17 Sept 2019 · 2 MW · 1
28 Aug 31 Aug 4 Sept 6 Sept 7 Sept 10 Sept 13 Sept 16 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

39°high
49km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,220 ha in 2017, 323 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.7% of the area of London (90 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. Itacajá 6,819 inhabitants where it started
    8,804 ha reached on 28 Aug
    2.9 %
  2. Centenário 2,131 inhabitants
    258 ha reached on 11 Sept
    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.

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)
28 Aug 36.1 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug 36.5 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug 36.2 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Aug 36.8 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Sept 36.8 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept 37.6 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Sept 38.5 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept 37.7 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept 37.1 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Sept 36.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Sept 36.2 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Sept 36.8 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Sept 36.5 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Sept 38.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Sept 37.8 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Sept 38.0 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Sept 38.6 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept 37.0 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept 37.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Sept 37.6 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept after 37.9 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept after 38.9 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 39.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Sept after 39.2 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Sept after 38.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Sept after 37.6 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Sept after 36.6 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Sept after 36.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Sept after 37.2 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
26 Sept after 34.1 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2019
After · 23 Sept 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 · 408Every 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 Itacajá fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2019 to 16 September 2019 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2019 to 12 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,000 hectares (90.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Itacajá (8,804 ha, 2.9 %); Centenário (258 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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: 12 September 2019 → 16 September 2019.
  2. Start date: 4 September 2019 → 28 August 2019.

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 4 September 2019 to 12 September 2019. 408 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.

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.