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Monte do Carmo fire, 8 September 2019 Monte do Carmo

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2019, 16:56 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2019 in Monte do Carmo, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,345 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 201th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 159 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
10,345ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
8 Sept 2019 – 27 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Sept
2019
Heat detections
428
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept27 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

89101112131415161718192021222324252627

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
50km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,111 ha in 2016, 227 ha in 2017, 916 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,847 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Monte do Carmo 5,694 inhabitants where it started
    10,409 ha reached on 8 Sept
    2.9 %

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)
8 Sept 36.9 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
9 Sept 37.3 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Sept 37.8 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Sept 37.6 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 50
12 Sept 38.7 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Sept 39.3 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Sept 38.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Sept 37.6 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Sept 37.6 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Sept 37.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Sept 38.7 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Sept 39.1 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Sept 39.0 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Sept 37.7 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Sept 37.8 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept 38.0 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Sept 37.2 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Sept 36.9 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Sept 34.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
27 Sept 35.7 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Sept after 35.6 °C 33 % 26 km/h 1.2 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2019
After · 4 Oct 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 · 428Every 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 Monte do Carmo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2019 and 27 September 2019: 20 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 10,345 hectares (103.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Monte do Carmo (10,409 ha, 2.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.