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Uruçuí fire, 17 August 2021 Uruçuí

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2021, 15:48 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2021 in Uruçuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,079 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 767th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 803 with a page). Number 787 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
3,079ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
17 Aug 2021 – 24 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Aug
2021
Heat detections
86
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
975MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
47km/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

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,258 ha in 2017, 694 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,318 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants where it started
    3,101 ha reached on 17 Aug
    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)
17 Aug 34.4 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug 33.3 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug 32.2 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug 33.2 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug 33.9 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug 34.6 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug 34.7 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Aug 35.0 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Aug after 34.7 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug after 35.9 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Aug after 36.2 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 35.6 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Aug after 35.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug after 35.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug after 33.5 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept after 32.5 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept after 33.0 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Sept after 35.8 °C 22 % 35 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 · 10 Aug 2021
After · 31 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 · 86Every 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 17 August 2021 and 24 August 2021: 8 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 3,079 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uruçuí (3,101 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.

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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.