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Pimenteiras fire, 11 September 2021 Pimenteiras, Assunção do Piauí, Quiterianópolis

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2021, 16:13 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2021 in Pimenteiras, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,228 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 464th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 805 with a page). Number 505 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Assunção do Piauí · 2026Pimenteiras · 2025Pimenteiras · 2020Pimenteiras · 2019

Burnt area
4,228ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
11 Sept 2021 – 29 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
11 Sept
2021
Heat detections
209
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
103MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept29 Sept
29 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

11 Sept 2021 · 45 MW · 4 12 Sept 2021 · 146 MW · 17 13 Sept 2021 · 75 MW · 8 14 Sept 2021 · 52 MW · 3 15 Sept 2021 · 50 MW · 5 16 Sept 2021 · 13 MW · 7 17 Sept 2021 · 210 MW · 23 18 Sept 2021 · 16 MW · 3 19 Sept 2021 · 27 MW · 2 20 Sept 2021 · 91 MW · 7 21 Sept 2021 · 52 MW · 11 22 Sept 2021 · 410 MW · 25 23 Sept 2021 · 351 MW · 41 24 Sept 2021 · 3 MW · 1 25 Sept 2021 · 5 MW · 1 26 Sept 2021 · 147 MW · 15 27 Sept 2021 · 194 MW · 21 28 Sept 2021 · 56 MW · 14 29 Sept 2021 · 14 MW · 1
11 Sept 14 Sept 17 Sept 20 Sept 22 Sept 23 Sept 26 Sept 29 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

34°high
50km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 199 ha in 2019, 1,095 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,168 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.7% of the area of London (42 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. Pimenteiras 11,341 inhabitants where it started
    2,815 ha reached on 19 Sept
    0.6 %
  2. Assunção do Piauí 7,452 inhabitants
    1,290 ha reached on 11 Sept
    0.8 %
  3. Quiterianópolis 20,213 inhabitants
    149 ha reached on 21 Sept
    0.1 %

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 area0.15 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.15 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)
11 Sept 33.9 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Sept 33.3 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Sept 32.5 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Sept 32.7 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Sept 33.3 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Sept 33.3 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Sept 32.6 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Sept 32.2 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Sept 33.9 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 Sept 33.5 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Sept 33.7 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Sept 33.6 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Sept 33.4 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Sept 32.9 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 50
25 Sept 32.3 °C 30 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Sept 32.8 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Sept 33.7 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Sept 33.7 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Sept 32.9 °C 27 % 33 km/h 1.6 mm High 30
30 Sept after 31.2 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
1 Oct after 31.7 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Oct after 32.6 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Oct after 33.2 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Oct after 33.4 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Oct after 33.1 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Oct after 34.3 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Oct after 33.8 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Oct after 32.9 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Oct after 32.1 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2021
After · 6 Oct 2021

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 · 209Every 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 Pimenteiras fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 September 2021 to 29 September 2021 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 September 2021 to 28 September 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,228 hectares (42.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pimenteiras (2,815 ha, 0.6 %); Assunção do Piauí (1,290 ha, 0.8 %); Quiterianópolis (149 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 28 September 2021 → 29 September 2021.

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
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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 11 September 2021 to 28 September 2021. 209 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.