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Uruçuí fire, 29 August 2025 Uruçuí

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2025, 05:12 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2025 in Uruçuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,690 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 575th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 803 with a page). Number 526 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.

Burnt area
3,690ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
29 Aug 2025 – 3 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Aug
2025
Heat detections
125
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
798MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug3 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

293031123

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
50km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 23 ha in 2017, 1,087 ha in 2018, 31 ha in 2019, 60 ha in 2020, 1,481 ha in 2022, 6 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants where it started
    3,711 ha reached on 29 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)
29 Aug 37.6 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Aug 37.3 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
31 Aug 37.4 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
1 Sept 37.4 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
2 Sept 36.7 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
3 Sept 36.3 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Sept after 36.5 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Sept after 36.4 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Sept after 37.3 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Sept after 38.1 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Sept after 37.7 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
9 Sept after 37.4 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Sept after 39.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Sept after 39.6 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Sept after 38.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Sept after 37.2 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2025
After · 10 Sept 2025

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 30 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 8 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak8 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM109 µg/m³
Optical depth0.22
2728293031123456
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 · 125Every 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 29 August 2025 and 3 September 2025: 6 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 3,690 hectares (36.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uruçuí (3,711 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.