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Uruçuí fire, 21 September 2019 Uruçuí, Sebastião Leal

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2019, 15:54 UTC

The fire started on 21 September 2019 in Uruçuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,815 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 379th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 803 with a page). Number 488 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
4,815ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
21 Sept 2019 – 25 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
21 Sept
2019
Heat detections
137
in a single hotspot: 297 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Sept25 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

21222325

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
46km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 29 Sept.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,727 ha in 2017, 150 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,705 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants where it started
    3,715 ha reached on 21 Sept
    0.4 %
  2. Sebastião Leal 4,446 inhabitants
    1,132 ha reached on 21 Sept
    0.4 %

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)
16 Sept 36.7 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Sept 36.1 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Sept 36.7 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Sept 37.7 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Sept 37.8 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Sept 38.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Sept 37.4 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Sept 37.8 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Sept 35.9 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Sept 36.6 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Sept after 36.3 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Sept after 38.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Sept after 37.4 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Sept after 31.6 °C 41 % 26 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Sept 2019
After · 2 Oct 2019

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 · 137Every 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 21 September 2019 and 25 September 2019: 5 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 4,815 hectares (48.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Uruçuí (3,715 ha, 0.4 %); Sebastião Leal (1,132 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 46 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.

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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.

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.