Pium fire, 23 August 2022 Pium
The fire started on 23 August 2022 in Pium, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,887 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 139th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 76 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.
- Burnt area
- 12,887ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 23 Aug 2022 – 1 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 426
- in a single hotspot: 296 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.6GW
- sum of detected power
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,938 ha in 2016, 5,954 ha in 2017, 11 ha in 2018, 6,105 ha in 2019, 2,942 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,340 ha that had burned before.
- 4,664 ha Pium fire, August 2016 12,958 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,758 ha Pium fire, August 2019 41,580 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,350 ha Pium fire, August 2017 74,474 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,174 ha Pium fire, September 2017 6,957 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,810 ha Pium fire, September 2020 5,221 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 103 ha Pium fire, September 2017 10,449 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 90 ha Pium fire, August 2017 3,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
12,984 ha reached on 23 Aug1.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Aug | 34.5 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 24 Aug | 35.7 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Aug | 36.8 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 26 Aug | 36.5 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Aug | 35.8 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 28 Aug | 36.1 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 29 Aug | 37.1 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 30 Aug | 36.9 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 31 Aug | 35.4 °C | 27 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 1 Sept | 35.2 °C | 22 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 2 Sept after | 35.3 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 Sept after | 36.3 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Sept after | 37.0 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 5 Sept after | 37.8 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Sept after | 36.7 °C | 25 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 7 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 8 Sept after | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Sept after | 37.3 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Sept after | 38.0 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Sept after | 39.1 °C | 17 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 26 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 209 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 86: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 426Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 18,551 haPium2 October 2025 · 8 days · 10 km away
- 41,580 haPium6 August 2019 · 42 days · 11 km away
- 74,474 haPium31 August 2017 · 25 days · 29 km away
- 21,074 haLagoa da Confusão30 July 2016 · 8 days · 31 km away
- 43,743 haPium27 August 2024 · 34 days · 32 km away
- 17,873 haSanta Terezinha15 September 2017 · 12 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pium fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2022 and 1 September 2022: 10 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 12,887 hectares (128.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pium (12,984 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 40 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
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
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.