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Uberaba fire, September 2018 Uberaba

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2018, 17:00 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2018 in Uberaba, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,451 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 161th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 221 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
3,451ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
10 Sept 2018 – 13 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Sept
2018
Heat detections
120
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

10111213

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
44km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.5 mm on 14 Sept.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 364 ha in 2016, 3 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Uberaba 337,836 inhabitants where it started
    3,477 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.8 %

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)
3 Sept 24.7 °C 54 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Sept 19.6 °C 51 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Sept 25.4 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Sept 30.3 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 32.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Sept 32.8 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept 32.5 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Sept 32.3 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Sept 31.9 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept 33.4 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 33.0 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 47
14 Sept after 29.6 °C 37 % 52 km/h 6.5 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2018
After · 20 Sept 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 · 120Every 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 Uberaba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2018 and 13 September 2018: 4 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 3,451 hectares (34.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uberaba (3,477 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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

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.

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.

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.