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Itacajá fire, August 2022 Itacajá

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2022, 16:44 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2022 in Itacajá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,255 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 283th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 158 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
8,255ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
27 Aug 2022 – 9 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Aug
2022
Heat detections
236
in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2728293031123456789

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
46km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5 ha in 2016, 3,389 ha in 2017, 2,995 ha in 2019, 4,396 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,182 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Itacajá 6,819 inhabitants where it started
    8,311 ha reached on 27 Aug
    2.7 %

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)
27 Aug 36.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Aug 36.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Aug 36.9 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Aug 36.4 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
31 Aug 35.2 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Sept 35.3 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept 35.8 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Sept 36.1 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Sept 37.7 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Sept 37.4 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Sept 36.6 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Sept 36.4 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 Sept 36.4 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Sept 36.9 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Sept after 37.5 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Sept after 37.5 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Sept after 35.5 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 37.5 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Sept after 37.7 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Sept after 38.1 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept after 36.3 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept after 37.3 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept after 37.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Sept after 37.2 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Sept after 37.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Sept after 36.6 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Sept after 35.9 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept after 34.9 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.9 mm High 25
24 Sept after 32.8 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2022
After · 16 Sept 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 4 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1053 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
25262728293031123456789101112
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 236Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 August 2022 and 9 September 2022: 14 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 8,255 hectares (82.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Itacajá (8,311 ha, 2.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.

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.