Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Luciara fire, 28 August 2019 Luciara

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2019, 04:46 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2019 in Luciara, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,863 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 622th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 239 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
7,863ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
28 Aug 2019 – 14 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2019
Heat detections
379
in a single hotspot: 209 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

28293031123456789101112131415

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
45km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,954 ha in 2016, 2,368 ha in 2017, 1,201 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,108 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luciara 2,509 inhabitants where it started
    7,907 ha reached on 28 Aug
    1.8 %

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)
28 Aug 37.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug 38.1 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug 38.2 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 38.5 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Sept 39.0 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept 39.6 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Sept 40.1 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept 40.2 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Sept 39.2 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept 37.8 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Sept 37.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Sept 38.0 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Sept 38.6 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Sept 38.6 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Sept 39.8 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept 38.6 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Sept 40.4 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept 38.7 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Sept after 37.6 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept after 39.0 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 39.9 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept after 38.8 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 38.5 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 39.2 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Sept after 38.9 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Sept after 38.0 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Sept after 37.6 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
24 Sept after 39.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Sept after 37.8 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Sept after 34.7 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2019
After · 21 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 · 379Every 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 28 August 2019 and 14 September 2019: 18 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 7,863 hectares (78.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luciara (7,907 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.