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Pilão Arcado fire, September 2018 Pilão Arcado

Out · last detection 6 Oct 2018, 16:31 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2018 in Pilão Arcado, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,743 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 63th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 467 with a page). Number 17 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pilão Arcado · 2017Pilão Arcado · 2016Pilão Arcado · 2020Pilão Arcado · 2023

Burnt area
12,743ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
29days
8 Sept 2018 – 6 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Sept
2018
Heat detections
564
in a single hotspot: 499 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
535MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept6 Oct
6 Oct 2018

How it evolved, day by day

8 Sept 2018 · 45 MW · 3 9 Sept 2018 · 27 MW · 3 10 Sept 2018 · 11 MW · 1 13 Sept 2018 · 1 MW · 2 14 Sept 2018 · 930 MW · 50 15 Sept 2018 · 154 MW · 10 16 Sept 2018 · 808 MW · 15 17 Sept 2018 · 513 MW · 24 18 Sept 2018 · 349 MW · 28 19 Sept 2018 · 569 MW · 57 20 Sept 2018 · 548 MW · 48 21 Sept 2018 · 476 MW · 34 22 Sept 2018 · 998 MW · 37 23 Sept 2018 · 7,397 MW · 119 24 Sept 2018 · 425 MW · 26 25 Sept 2018 · 1 MW · 1 26 Sept 2018 · 83 MW · 8 27 Sept 2018 · 73 MW · 4 28 Sept 2018 · 428 MW · 25 29 Sept 2018 · 93 MW · 16 30 Sept 2018 · 251 MW · 26 1 Oct 2018 · 11 MW · 2 2 Oct 2018 · 43 MW · 3 3 Oct 2018 · 34 MW · 6 4 Oct 2018 · 29 MW · 5 5 Oct 2018 · 86 MW · 8 6 Oct 2018 · 59 MW · 3
8 Sept 14 Sept 18 Sept 22 Sept 23 Sept 26 Sept 30 Sept 4 Oct

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
48km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 64.9 mm on 16 Oct.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 45 ha in 2016, 1,802 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8% of the area of London (127 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. Pilão Arcado 35,357 inhabitants where it started
    12,812 ha reached on 8 Sept
    1.1 %

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 area0.26 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.26 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (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)
8 Sept 33.0 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Sept 33.1 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Sept 34.5 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Sept 33.1 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Sept 35.0 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept 33.8 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept 33.3 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept 34.7 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Sept 36.8 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Sept 37.9 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Sept 37.3 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Sept 37.3 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Sept 36.1 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Sept 35.6 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Sept 37.3 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Sept 36.9 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Sept 35.6 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Sept 35.0 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Sept 36.0 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Sept 36.3 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Sept 37.4 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Sept 38.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Sept 36.0 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Oct 36.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Oct 36.7 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Oct 36.0 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Oct 38.2 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Oct 35.0 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Oct 36.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Oct after 35.0 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Oct after 36.0 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Oct after 36.6 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Oct after 37.2 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Oct after 37.4 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Oct after 36.6 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Oct after 36.6 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Oct after 38.4 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct after 36.4 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
16 Oct after 26.3 °C 67 % 29 km/h 64.9 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2018
After · 13 Oct 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 · 564Every 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 Pilão Arcado fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 September 2018 to 6 October 2018 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 September 2018 to 30 September 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,743 hectares (127.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pilão Arcado (12,812 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 30 September 2018 → 6 October 2018.
  2. Start date: 13 September 2018 → 8 September 2018.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 September 2018 to 30 September 2018. 564 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.