Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Luciara fire, August 2018 Luciara

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2018, 16:31 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2018 in Luciara, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,756 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1537th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 184 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
3,756ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
30 Aug 2018 – 3 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2018
Heat detections
65
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug3 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

30311234

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
41km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,322 ha in 2016, 1,614 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,566 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luciara 2,509 inhabitants where it started
    3,778 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.9 %

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)
30 Aug 37.1 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug 37.4 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Sept 37.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept 38.2 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Sept 38.2 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept after 35.6 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Sept after 36.7 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept after 39.3 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept after 36.2 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Sept after 38.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Sept after 38.1 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Sept after 37.4 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Sept after 39.8 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept after 37.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept after 35.4 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.9 mm High 29
14 Sept after 35.3 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2018
After · 10 Sept 2018

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 · 65Every 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 Luciara fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2018 and 3 September 2018: 5 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 3,756 hectares (37.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luciara (3,778 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 41 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

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.