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Taguatinga fire, July 2021 Taguatinga, Luís Eduardo Magalhães, Ponte Alta do Bom Jesus

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2021, 16:43 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2021 in Taguatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,581 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 329th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 220 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
7,581ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
20 Jul 2021 – 4 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
20 Jul
2021
Heat detections
267
in a single hotspot: 240 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

20212223242526272829303112345

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

The weather it burned in

32°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

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 542 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Taguatinga 14,011 inhabitants where it started
    6,022 ha reached on 20 Jul
    2.6 %
  2. Luís Eduardo Magalhães 107,909 inhabitants
    1,587 ha reached on 25 Jul
    0.4 %
  3. Ponte Alta do Bom Jesus 4,220 inhabitants
    16 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)
20 Jul 32.1 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jul 30.9 °C 26 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Jul 29.8 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Jul 29.7 °C 33 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jul 28.8 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jul 29.2 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jul 29.1 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Jul 30.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jul 31.9 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul 31.6 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul 31.8 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul 31.6 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Aug 29.1 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Aug 28.3 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Aug 29.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug 30.5 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Aug after 28.9 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Aug after 29.0 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Aug after 28.7 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Aug after 29.6 °C 28 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug after 29.8 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Aug after 30.8 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Aug after 32.5 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug after 32.6 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug after 31.0 °C 21 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Aug after 30.8 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug after 31.5 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2021
After · 11 Aug 2021

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 · 267Every 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 Taguatinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 July 2021 and 4 August 2021: 16 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 7,581 hectares (75.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Taguatinga (6,022 ha, 2.6 %); Luís Eduardo Magalhães (1,587 ha, 0.4 %); Ponte Alta do Bom Jesus (16 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 52 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.

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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.

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.