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Pium fire, August 2021 Pium

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2021, 16:50 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2021 in Pium, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,198 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 438th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 295 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
6,198ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
8 Aug 2021 – 26 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Aug
2021
Heat detections
329
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617181920212223242526

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
43km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,984 ha in 2016, 3,596 ha in 2017, 4,393 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,983 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pium 7,128 inhabitants where it started
    6,237 ha reached on 5 Aug
    0.6 %

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)
5 Aug 34.6 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug 34.6 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug 33.9 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Aug 33.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Aug 35.0 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Aug 35.5 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Aug 36.9 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Aug 37.4 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Aug 35.7 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Aug 36.1 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug 36.6 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Aug 36.8 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug 36.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Aug 36.2 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug 34.8 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Aug 35.0 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug 36.7 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug 36.8 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug 36.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Aug 37.3 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 37.6 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Aug 37.9 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Aug after 37.1 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 37.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug after 37.7 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Aug after 36.4 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Aug after 32.3 °C 55 % 35 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 16
1 Sept after 35.3 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
2 Sept after 34.7 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Sept after 35.8 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Sept after 37.0 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Sept after 36.5 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Sept after 36.9 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
7 Sept after 34.8 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Sept after 35.1 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Sept after 35.3 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Sept after 36.5 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2021
After · 2 Sept 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 · 329Every 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 Pium fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 August 2021 and 26 August 2021: 19 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 6,198 hectares (62.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pium (6,237 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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

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.