How long did the Lassance fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2022 and 16 September 2022: 9 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 4,170 hectares (41.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Lassance (4,191 ha, 1.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2022-09-08 → 2022-09-16

Lassance fire, 8 September 2022 Lassance

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2022, 16:10 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2022 in Lassance, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,170 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 112th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 392 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area: 4,170ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 8 Sept 2022 – 16 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 8 Sept; 2022
Heat detections: 207; in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Sept 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516

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

42km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,757 ha in 2019.

2,016 ha Lassance fire, September 2019 3,173 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Lassance 7,124 inhabitants where it started

4,191 ha reached on 8 Sept

1.3 %

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)
3 Sept	29.0 °C	16 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Sept	31.2 °C	17 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
5 Sept	27.5 °C	34 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Sept	26.3 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
7 Sept	24.7 °C	33 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Sept	28.8 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
9 Sept	30.0 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
10 Sept	31.8 °C	15 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
11 Sept	33.4 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
12 Sept	30.6 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
13 Sept	32.2 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
14 Sept	34.4 °C	12 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
15 Sept	32.7 °C	19 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
16 Sept	32.3 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
17 Sept after	28.2 °C	40 %	31 km/h	5.0 mm	Low 6
18 Sept after	26.8 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
19 Sept after	28.3 °C	34 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
20 Sept after	28.9 °C	41 %	30 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 21
21 Sept after	28.0 °C	45 %	25 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 21
22 Sept after	23.5 °C	68 %	40 km/h	2.4 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Sept 2022

After · 23 Sept 2022

Before After

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 12 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak58 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1082 µg/m³

Optical depth0.95

WHO 15

678910111213141516171819

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 · 207Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lassance fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2022 and 16 September 2022: 9 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 4,170 hectares (41.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Lassance (4,191 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned