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Uruçuí fire, 13 September 2023 Baixa Grande do Ribeiro, Uruçuí

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2023, 16:25 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2023 in Uruçuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,965 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 195th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 804 with a page). Number 94 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Baixa Grande do Ribeiro · 2019Baixa Grande do Ribeiro · 2019Baixa Grande do Ribeiro · 2022Baixa Grande do Ribeiro · 2024

Burnt area
6,965ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
13 Sept 2023 – 29 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
13 Sept
2023
Heat detections
219
in a single hotspot: 131 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
143MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept29 Sept
29 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

13 Sept 2023 · 6 MW · 2 15 Sept 2023 · 258 MW · 10 16 Sept 2023 · 460 MW · 32 17 Sept 2023 · 126 MW · 33 18 Sept 2023 · 19 MW · 2 20 Sept 2023 · 208 MW · 35 21 Sept 2023 · 322 MW · 47 22 Sept 2023 · 44 MW · 23 23 Sept 2023 · 20 MW · 1 24 Sept 2023 · 15 MW · 3 26 Sept 2023 · 277 MW · 17 27 Sept 2023 · 10 MW · 7 29 Sept 2023 · 97 MW · 7
13 Sept 16 Sept 18 Sept 21 Sept 23 Sept 26 Sept 29 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
44km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 153 ha in 2016, 1,794 ha in 2017, 2,613 ha in 2019, 1,189 ha in 2021, 223 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,623 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.4% of the area of London (70 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Baixa Grande do Ribeiro 13,272 inhabitants
    4,199 ha reached on 15 Sept
    0.5 %
  2. Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants where it started
    2,810 ha reached on 13 Sept
    0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.83 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.83 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
13 Sept 36.0 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Sept 37.2 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Sept 38.6 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Sept 36.8 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Sept 36.4 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Sept 35.9 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Sept 35.9 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 Sept 35.7 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Sept 36.5 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Sept 37.3 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Sept 37.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Sept 37.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Sept 37.4 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Sept 36.3 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Sept 32.6 °C 48 % 21 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 18
28 Sept 33.1 °C 47 % 30 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 18
29 Sept 35.6 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
30 Sept after 36.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Oct after 37.7 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Oct after 37.8 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Oct after 36.8 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Oct after 35.4 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
5 Oct after 37.0 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Oct after 36.5 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
7 Oct after 36.7 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Oct after 35.6 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Oct after 36.2 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Sept 2023
After · 6 Oct 2023

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 18 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1039 µg/m³
Optical depth0.46
111213141516171819202122232425
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 · 219Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 September 2023 to 29 September 2023 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 September 2023 to 22 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,965 hectares (69.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Baixa Grande do Ribeiro (4,199 ha, 0.5 %); Uruçuí (2,810 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 September 2023 to 22 September 2023. 219 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.