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Pio IX fire, September 2019 Pimenteiras, Santo Antônio de Lisboa, Pio IX

Out · last detection 14 Oct 2019, 16:38 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2019 in Pio IX, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,422 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 91th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 804 with a page). Number 135 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Compare with…

Suggestions: São Luís do Piauí · 2021Pimenteiras · 2019Pimenteiras · 2019Pimenteiras · 2020

Burnt area
11,422ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
17 Sept 2019 – 14 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
5
municipalities
Started on
17 Sept
2019
Heat detections
626
in a single hotspot: 160 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
352MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept14 Oct
14 Oct 2019

How it evolved, day by day

17 Sept 2019 · 100 MW · 10 18 Sept 2019 · 13 MW · 6 19 Sept 2019 · 361 MW · 8 20 Sept 2019 · 151 MW · 11 21 Sept 2019 · 162 MW · 17 22 Sept 2019 · 3,001 MW · 114 23 Sept 2019 · 990 MW · 36 24 Sept 2019 · 123 MW · 20 25 Sept 2019 · 553 MW · 14 26 Sept 2019 · 100 MW · 17 27 Sept 2019 · 60 MW · 7 28 Sept 2019 · 1,025 MW · 65 29 Sept 2019 · 779 MW · 85 30 Sept 2019 · 348 MW · 41 1 Oct 2019 · 42 MW · 5 3 Oct 2019 · 153 MW · 9 4 Oct 2019 · 117 MW · 6 5 Oct 2019 · 52 MW · 5 6 Oct 2019 · 160 MW · 25 7 Oct 2019 · 54 MW · 8 8 Oct 2019 · 173 MW · 15 9 Oct 2019 · 312 MW · 34 10 Oct 2019 · 262 MW · 51 11 Oct 2019 · 43 MW · 10 13 Oct 2019 · 5 MW · 3 14 Oct 2019 · 8 MW · 4
17 Sept 21 Sept 22 Sept 25 Sept 29 Sept 4 Oct 8 Oct 13 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
50km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.6 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,254 ha in 2016, 667 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.2% of the area of London (114 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
    5,021 ha reached on 22 Sept
    1.1 %
  2. Santo Antônio de Lisboa
    2,952 ha reached on 27 Sept
    7.6 %
  3. Pio IX 17,613 inhabitants where it started
    2,254 ha reached on 17 Sept
    1.2 %
  4. São Luís do Piauí 2,309 inhabitants
    978 ha reached on 6 Oct
    4.5 %
  5. Francisco Santos 8,237 inhabitants
    293 ha reached on 30 Sept
    0.6 %

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 area0.29 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.29 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)
17 Sept 35.4 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept 33.9 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Sept 36.4 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Sept 36.9 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Sept 37.3 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Sept 36.3 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Sept 36.7 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Sept 34.7 °C 30 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Sept 35.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Sept 35.8 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Sept 36.7 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Sept 37.5 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Sept 35.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Sept 34.9 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Oct 35.4 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Oct 34.0 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 41
3 Oct 36.1 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Oct 35.1 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Oct 35.6 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Oct 36.3 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Oct 35.8 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Oct 36.0 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Oct 36.7 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Oct 36.5 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Oct 35.6 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Oct 36.1 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Oct 36.3 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Oct 37.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Oct after 37.2 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Oct after 35.7 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Oct after 36.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Oct after 36.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Oct after 36.2 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Oct after 36.6 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
21 Oct after 34.2 °C 43 % 25 km/h 6.6 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2019
After · 21 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 · 626Every 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 Pio IX fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 September 2019 to 14 October 2019 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 September 2019 to 11 October 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,422 hectares (114.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Pimenteiras (5,021 ha, 1.1 %); Santo Antônio de Lisboa (2,952 ha, 7.6 %); Pio IX (2,254 ha, 1.2 %); São Luís do Piauí (978 ha, 4.5 %); Francisco Santos (293 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % 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: 11 October 2019 → 14 October 2019.

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 17 September 2019 to 11 October 2019. 626 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.