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Uruçuí fire, August 2017 Uruçuí

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2017, 16:56 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2017 in Uruçuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,980 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 194th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 803 with a page). Number 287 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
6,980ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
30 Aug 2017 – 5 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2017
Heat detections
268
in a single hotspot: 199 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug5 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

303112345

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
57km/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

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants where it started
    7,030 ha reached on 30 Aug
    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)
30 Aug 36.7 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Aug 37.2 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Sept 37.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Sept 34.7 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Sept 34.0 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Sept 33.7 °C 32 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Sept 35.2 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Sept after 35.6 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Sept after 34.9 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept after 36.6 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Sept after 35.9 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Sept after 35.9 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept after 35.6 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept after 35.4 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept after 35.6 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept after 36.6 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Sept after 35.6 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2017
After · 12 Sept 2017

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 · 268Every 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 Uruçuí fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2017 and 5 September 2017: 7 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 6,980 hectares (69.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uruçuí (7,030 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.

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.