How long did the Uruçuí fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2022 and 15 September 2022: 13 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 8,928 hectares (89.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Uruçuí (8,988 ha, 1.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 47 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 · 2022-09-03 → 2022-09-15

Uruçuí fire, September 2022 Uruçuí

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2022, 03:56 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2022 in Uruçuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,928 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 139th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 804 with a page). Number 138 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area: 8,928ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 3 Sept 2022 – 15 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 3 Sept; 2022
Heat detections: 367; in a single hotspot: 124 MW
Danger at start: 51; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 3.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Sept 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112131415

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

47km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 23.0 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 113 ha in 2017, 1,460 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants where it started

8,988 ha reached on 2 Sept

1.1 %

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)
2 Sept	34.3 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
3 Sept	35.3 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
4 Sept	35.9 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
5 Sept	36.1 °C	22 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
6 Sept	35.4 °C	19 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
7 Sept	34.8 °C	19 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
8 Sept	34.9 °C	24 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
9 Sept	35.5 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
10 Sept	36.1 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
11 Sept	36.4 °C	18 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
12 Sept	36.4 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
13 Sept	36.3 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
14 Sept	37.6 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
15 Sept	36.8 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Sept after	35.6 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 41
17 Sept after	36.2 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
18 Sept after	35.4 °C	22 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
19 Sept after	35.8 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
20 Sept after	36.5 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
21 Sept after	36.1 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
22 Sept after	34.9 °C	36 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
23 Sept after	34.5 °C	40 %	27 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
24 Sept after	32.4 °C	45 %	26 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
25 Sept after	29.7 °C	61 %	40 km/h	23.0 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Aug 2022

After · 22 Sept 2022

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 15 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 145 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak145 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10208 µg/m³

Optical depth0.56

WHO 15

123456789101112131415161718

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 367Every 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 Uruçuí fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2022 and 15 September 2022: 13 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 8,928 hectares (89.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Uruçuí (8,988 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 47 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.

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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.

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