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Uruçuí fire, 16 September 2024 Uruçuí

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2024, 04:26 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2024 in Uruçuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,608 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 412th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 803 with a page). Number 765 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
4,608ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
16 Sept 2024 – 28 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Sept
2024
Heat detections
242
in a single hotspot: 307 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept28 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021222324252829

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
44km/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

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,195 ha in 2017, 565 ha in 2020, 9 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,449 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants where it started
    4,638 ha reached on 16 Sept
    0.6 %

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 37.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Sept 37.6 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Sept 36.7 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Sept 36.7 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Sept 37.1 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Sept 37.3 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Sept 37.6 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Sept 37.6 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Sept 37.1 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Sept 35.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Sept 34.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Sept 36.8 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Sept 38.0 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Sept after 36.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Sept after 35.9 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Oct after 36.8 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Oct after 37.3 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Oct after 38.4 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Oct after 37.0 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
5 Oct after 37.8 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Oct after 37.0 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Oct after 35.1 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.5 mm High 38
8 Oct after 37.9 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Oct after 38.1 °C 23 % 28 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 · 9 Sept 2024
After · 5 Oct 2024

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 29 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1041 µg/m³
Optical depth0.50
14151617181920212223242526272829301
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 · 242Every 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 16 September 2024 and 28 September 2024: 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 4,608 hectares (46.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uruçuí (4,638 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % 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

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.