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Planaltina fire, 5 September 2019 Planaltina, Brasília

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2019, 16:17 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2019 in Planaltina, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,694 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 219th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 548 with a page). Number 395 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
5,694ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
5 Sept 2019 – 12 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2019
Heat detections
174
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213

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
49km/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: 1.2 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2016, 2,547 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Planaltina 105,031 inhabitants where it started
    5,725 ha reached on 5 Sept
    2.2 %
  2. Brasília 47,045 inhabitants
    7 ha
    0.0 %

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 Sept 32.4 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Sept 29.8 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Sept 28.3 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept 30.0 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Sept 30.8 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept 32.1 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept 32.8 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Sept 33.4 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 33.7 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept after 32.6 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Sept after 30.5 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Sept after 31.5 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Sept after 32.3 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Sept after 33.3 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept after 34.3 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept after 34.6 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Sept after 34.3 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Sept after 33.7 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Sept after 31.3 °C 27 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Sept after 30.8 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Sept after 30.3 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Sept after 26.5 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.4 mm High 37
27 Sept after 28.6 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
28 Sept after 30.1 °C 42 % 29 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2019
After · 19 Sept 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 · 174Every 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 Planaltina fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2019 and 12 September 2019: 8 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 5,694 hectares (56.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Planaltina (5,725 ha, 2.2 %); Brasília (7 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 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.

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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.

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.