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Santo Inácio do Piauí fire, July 2018 Colônia do Piauí, Santo Inácio do Piauí, São Miguel do Fidalgo

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2018, 16:06 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2018 in Santo Inácio do Piauí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,195 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 805 with a page). Number 3 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Santo Inácio do Piauí · 2016São Miguel do Fidalgo · 2024Campinas do Piauí · 2020São Miguel do Fidalgo · 2021

Burnt area
28,195ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
29days
18 Jul 2018 – 15 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2018
Heat detections
1,264
in a single hotspot: 246 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
436MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul15 Aug
15 Aug 2018

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 2018 · 13 MW · 1 19 Jul 2018 · 295 MW · 13 20 Jul 2018 · 173 MW · 9 21 Jul 2018 · 835 MW · 56 22 Jul 2018 · 321 MW · 52 23 Jul 2018 · 726 MW · 92 24 Jul 2018 · 1,104 MW · 107 25 Jul 2018 · 665 MW · 56 26 Jul 2018 · 417 MW · 38 27 Jul 2018 · 1,580 MW · 86 28 Jul 2018 · 1,485 MW · 117 29 Jul 2018 · 955 MW · 107 30 Jul 2018 · 328 MW · 52 31 Jul 2018 · 14 MW · 2 1 Aug 2018 · 56 MW · 11 2 Aug 2018 · 221 MW · 24 3 Aug 2018 · 736 MW · 104 4 Aug 2018 · 867 MW · 127 5 Aug 2018 · 108 MW · 21 6 Aug 2018 · 191 MW · 31 7 Aug 2018 · 666 MW · 50 8 Aug 2018 · 336 MW · 37 9 Aug 2018 · 216 MW · 28 10 Aug 2018 · 152 MW · 13 11 Aug 2018 · 34 MW · 6 12 Aug 2018 · 83 MW · 9 13 Aug 2018 · 24 MW · 6 14 Aug 2018 · 24 MW · 4 15 Aug 2018 · 23 MW · 5
18 Jul 23 Jul 27 Jul 28 Jul 2 Aug 7 Aug 12 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

37°high
52km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,118 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 18% of the area of London (282 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. Colônia do Piauí 6,994 inhabitants
    12,091 ha reached on 20 Jul
    13 %
  2. Santo Inácio do Piauí 3,646 inhabitants where it started
    9,800 ha reached on 18 Jul
    11 %
  3. São Miguel do Fidalgo 2,829 inhabitants
    6,489 ha reached on 20 Jul
    7.9 %

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 area0.94 ha
Residents≈ 90

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.94 hectares of built-up land and about 90 residents (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)
18 Jul 34.5 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jul 33.7 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Jul 34.0 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Jul 33.6 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jul 34.4 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jul 34.3 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jul 33.6 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Jul 34.0 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul 33.9 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jul 34.1 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jul 34.9 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jul 34.5 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jul 34.7 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul 34.2 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug 35.9 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug 35.2 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Aug 35.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Aug 35.3 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug 36.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug 36.5 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug 36.0 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Aug 35.4 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Aug 35.5 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Aug 36.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug 37.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Aug 36.8 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Aug 35.8 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug 35.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug 36.8 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Aug after 36.4 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug after 35.5 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Aug after 35.5 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Aug after 35.0 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Aug after 34.5 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Aug after 34.5 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Aug after 35.5 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Aug after 35.7 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Aug after 36.1 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Aug after 37.0 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2018
After · 22 Aug 2018

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 · 1,264Every 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 Santo Inácio do Piauí fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 July 2018 to 15 August 2018 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 July 2018 to 14 August 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 28,195 hectares (282.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Colônia do Piauí (12,091 ha, 13 %); Santo Inácio do Piauí (9,800 ha, 11 %); São Miguel do Fidalgo (6,489 ha, 7.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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 · 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: 14 August 2018 → 15 August 2018.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 July 2018 to 14 August 2018. 1,264 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.