How long did the Taguatinga fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2021 and 27 August 2021: 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 4,022 hectares (40.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Taguatinga (3,398 ha, 1.4 %); Luís Eduardo Magalhães (649 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 53 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.

BR · Brazil · 2021-08-18 → 2021-08-27

Taguatinga fire, August 2021 Taguatinga, Luís Eduardo Magalhães

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2021, 16:31 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2021 in Taguatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,022 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 813th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 542 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Taguatinga · 2017 Taguatinga · 2017 Aurora do Tocantins · 2022 Taguatinga · 2024

Burnt area: 4,022ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 18 Aug 2021 – 27 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 18 Aug; 2021
Heat detections: 122; in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start: 54; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 83MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug27 Aug

Play back 27 Aug 2021

How it evolved, day by day

18 Aug 20 Aug 22 Aug 23 Aug 24 Aug 26 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

34°high

53km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

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: 3,223 ha in 2017.

3,223 ha Taguatinga fire, October 2017 4,370 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.5% of the area of London (40 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

Taguatinga 14,011 inhabitants where it started

3,398 ha reached on 18 Aug

1.4 %
Luís Eduardo Magalhães 107,909 inhabitants

649 ha reached on 22 Aug

0.2 %

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	Danger (FWI)
18 Aug	31.9 °C	20 %	48 km/h	Extreme 54
19 Aug	30.0 °C	27 %	53 km/h	Extreme 53
20 Aug	31.2 °C	26 %	46 km/h	Very high 49
21 Aug	31.5 °C	26 %	46 km/h	Very high 50
22 Aug	32.6 °C	23 %	46 km/h	Extreme 50
23 Aug	32.8 °C	26 %	45 km/h	Very high 49
24 Aug	33.8 °C	24 %	40 km/h	Very high 46
25 Aug	33.6 °C	23 %	43 km/h	Very high 50
26 Aug	34.5 °C	21 %	42 km/h	Very high 49
27 Aug	34.1 °C	19 %	43 km/h	Extreme 51
28 Aug after	32.7 °C	26 %	46 km/h	Extreme 51
29 Aug after	33.7 °C	26 %	47 km/h	Extreme 53
30 Aug after	34.1 °C	25 %	48 km/h	Extreme 54
31 Aug after	31.5 °C	33 %	47 km/h	Very high 47
1 Sept after	32.3 °C	29 %	49 km/h	Very high 49
2 Sept after	32.7 °C	27 %	40 km/h	Very high 44
3 Sept after	33.3 °C	24 %	41 km/h	Very high 44
4 Sept after	34.3 °C	16 %	39 km/h	Very high 50
5 Sept after	35.3 °C	20 %	35 km/h	Very high 47
6 Sept after	36.5 °C	21 %	25 km/h	Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Aug 2021

After · 3 Sept 2021

Before After

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 · 122Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Taguatinga fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2021 and 27 August 2021: 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 4,022 hectares (40.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Taguatinga (3,398 ha, 1.4 %); Luís Eduardo Magalhães (649 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 53 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 122 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.

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.

Where it burned