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Pacaraima fire, February 2019 Pacaraima

Out · last detection 5 Mar 2019, 05:20 UTC

The fire started on 23 February 2019 in Pacaraima, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,351 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 103th largest in Roraima since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 822 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,351ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
23 Feb 2019 – 5 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Feb
2019
Heat detections
124
in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
671MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Feb5 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

242526272812345

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
43km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 15 Mar.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,077 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Pacaraima 19,305 inhabitants where it started
    3,374 ha reached on 24 Feb
    0.4 %

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)
23 Feb 36.2 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Feb 36.6 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Feb 36.3 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Feb 36.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Feb 35.0 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Feb 35.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Mar 35.0 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Mar 34.4 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Mar 34.9 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Mar 35.9 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Mar 34.9 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Mar after 36.3 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Mar after 37.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Mar after 36.5 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Mar after 35.4 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Mar after 37.1 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Mar after 37.0 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Mar after 34.1 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Mar after 35.6 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Mar after 35.5 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Mar after 34.8 °C 40 % 36 km/h 5.2 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Feb 2019
After · 12 Mar 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 · 124Every 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 Pacaraima fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 February 2019 and 5 March 2019: 11 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 3,351 hectares (33.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pacaraima (3,374 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.