Pium fire, May 2022 Pium
The fire started on 18 May 2022 in Pium, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,603 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 952th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 491 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Pium · 2016Pium · 2017Pium · 2019Pium · 2026
- Burnt area
- 3,603ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 18 May 2022 – 20 May 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 May
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 79
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 129MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 11 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: 2,216 ha in 2016, 1,904 ha in 2017, 2,708 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,510 ha that had burned before.
- 2,216 ha Pium fire, July 2016 7,344 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,800 ha Pium fire, August 2017 74,474 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 419 ha Pium fire, August 2019 6,962 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
3,631 ha reached on 18 May0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 May | 28.7 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 19 May | 27.6 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 20 May | 29.2 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 21 May after | 30.8 °C | 28 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 22 May after | 32.1 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 23 May after | 33.0 °C | 42 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 24 May after | 33.5 °C | 44 % | 35 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 28 |
| 25 May after | 33.2 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 May after | 33.3 °C | 40 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 May after | 33.7 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 28 May after | 34.1 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 29 May after | 34.2 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 May after | 34.7 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 79Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,485 haPium19 September 2026 · 9 days · 11 km away
- 74,474 haPium31 August 2017 · 25 days · 17 km away
- 43,743 haPium27 August 2024 · 34 days · 19 km away
- 18,551 haPium2 October 2025 · 8 days · 22 km away
- 41,580 haPium6 August 2019 · 42 days · 23 km away
- 21,074 haLagoa da Confusão30 July 2016 · 8 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pium fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 May 2022 and 20 May 2022: 3 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 3,603 hectares (36.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pium (3,631 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
- 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 79 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.
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.