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Padre Bernardo fire, August 2019 Planaltina, Padre Bernardo

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2019, 17:32 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2019 in Padre Bernardo, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,657 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 73th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 548 with a page). Number 128 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Planaltina · 2016Planaltina · 2017Planaltina · 2021Planaltina · 2021

Burnt area
11,657ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
29days
28 Aug 2019 – 25 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2019
Heat detections
506
in a single hotspot: 151 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
181MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug25 Sept
25 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

29 Aug 2019 · 13 MW · 8 30 Aug 2019 · 3 MW · 2 31 Aug 2019 · 151 MW · 22 1 Sept 2019 · 43 MW · 14 2 Sept 2019 · 58 MW · 14 3 Sept 2019 · 81 MW · 12 4 Sept 2019 · 394 MW · 24 5 Sept 2019 · 625 MW · 81 6 Sept 2019 · 136 MW · 30 7 Sept 2019 · 23 MW · 7 8 Sept 2019 · 9 MW · 4 9 Sept 2019 · 31 MW · 3 10 Sept 2019 · 92 MW · 12 11 Sept 2019 · 93 MW · 11 12 Sept 2019 · 48 MW · 8 13 Sept 2019 · 100 MW · 23 14 Sept 2019 · 27 MW · 5 15 Sept 2019 · 116 MW · 4 16 Sept 2019 · 386 MW · 70 17 Sept 2019 · 12 MW · 4 18 Sept 2019 · 8 MW · 1 19 Sept 2019 · 19 MW · 3 20 Sept 2019 · 242 MW · 15 21 Sept 2019 · 24 MW · 5 22 Sept 2019 · 441 MW · 40 23 Sept 2019 · 1,780 MW · 55 24 Sept 2019 · 78 MW · 20 25 Sept 2019 · 48 MW · 9
29 Aug 2 Sept 6 Sept 10 Sept 14 Sept 18 Sept 22 Sept 23 Sept

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
51km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,256 ha in 2016, 3,409 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,684 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.4% of the area of London (117 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Planaltina 105,031 inhabitants
    6,748 ha reached on 5 Sept
    2.6 %
  2. Padre Bernardo 34,967 inhabitants where it started
    4,979 ha reached on 29 Aug
    1.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.23 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.23 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 30.8 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug 31.0 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug 32.1 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug 33.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Sept 34.0 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Sept 34.4 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Sept 34.6 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept 34.7 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Sept 34.4 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Sept 31.7 °C 23 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Sept 30.8 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Sept 32.2 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 32.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Sept 33.9 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Sept 34.7 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept 35.4 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Sept 35.5 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Sept 34.4 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Sept 32.6 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Sept 33.2 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Sept 34.1 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Sept 35.3 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept 36.3 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept 36.1 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Sept 36.6 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Sept 35.4 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Sept 33.0 °C 25 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Sept 32.8 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Sept 32.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Sept after 28.3 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm High 31
27 Sept after 31.1 °C 40 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
28 Sept after 32.2 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.9 mm High 22
29 Sept after 33.5 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Sept after 32.6 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
1 Oct after 33.1 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
2 Oct after 34.1 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Oct after 34.9 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Oct after 34.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Oct after 32.6 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2019
After · 2 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 · 506Every 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 Padre Bernardo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 August 2019 and 25 September 2019: 29 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 11,657 hectares (116.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Planaltina (6,748 ha, 2.6 %); Padre Bernardo (4,979 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 506 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.