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Ribeiro Gonçalves fire, August 2022 Ribeiro Gonçalves, Uruçuí

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2022, 15:54 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2022 in Ribeiro Gonçalves, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,143 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 243th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 805 with a page). Number 226 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.7 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: Ribeiro Gonçalves · 2020Uruçuí · 2026São Félix de Balsas · 2024São Félix de Balsas · 2017

Burnt area
6,143ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
21 Aug 2022 – 1 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
21 Aug
2022
Heat detections
155
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
77MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug1 Sept
1 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

21 Aug 2022 · 6 MW · 1 22 Aug 2022 · 32 MW · 15 23 Aug 2022 · 30 MW · 14 24 Aug 2022 · 130 MW · 21 25 Aug 2022 · 77 MW · 16 26 Aug 2022 · 78 MW · 16 27 Aug 2022 · 112 MW · 14 28 Aug 2022 · 113 MW · 32 29 Aug 2022 · 185 MW · 24 1 Sept 2022 · 4 MW · 2
21 Aug 23 Aug 25 Aug 27 Aug 29 Aug

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high
50km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 948 ha in 2016, 1,045 ha in 2017, 2,227 ha in 2018, 712 ha in 2019, 3,127 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,144 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.9% of the area of London (61 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. Ribeiro Gonçalves where it started
    5,785 ha reached on 21 Aug
    1.4 %
  2. Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants
    392 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.0 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
21 Aug 32.3 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Aug 33.2 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Aug 34.1 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Aug 34.3 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Aug 34.8 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Aug 34.5 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
27 Aug 34.6 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Aug 34.9 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Aug 36.4 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Aug 35.8 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Aug 33.7 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Sept 33.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Sept after 34.8 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Sept after 36.2 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Sept after 36.6 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
5 Sept after 36.7 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Sept after 36.0 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Sept after 35.4 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Sept after 35.4 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Sept after 36.1 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Sept after 36.6 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Sept after 36.9 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Aug 2022
After · 8 Sept 2022

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 · Copernicus

On 23 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1046 µg/m³
Optical depth0.33
1920212223242526272829303112
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 155Every 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 Ribeiro Gonçalves fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 August 2022 to 1 September 2022 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 August 2022 to 30 August 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,143 hectares (61.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ribeiro Gonçalves (5,785 ha, 1.4 %); Uruçuí (392 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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: 30 August 2022 → 1 September 2022.

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 21 August 2022 to 30 August 2022. 155 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.