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Uruçuí fire, 11 September 2025 Uruçuí

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2025, 03:39 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2025 in Uruçuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,646 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 168th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 803 with a page). Number 181 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.

Burnt area
7,646ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
11 Sept 2025 – 24 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Sept
2025
Heat detections
196
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617181920212224

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
52km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,415 ha in 2017, 1,012 ha in 2019, 426 ha in 2021, 3,177 ha in 2022, 2,241 ha in 2023, 1,699 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,621 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants where it started
    7,691 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.9 %

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)
10 Sept 38.5 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Sept 38.8 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Sept 37.5 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Sept 36.6 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Sept 37.0 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Sept 38.0 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
16 Sept 38.0 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
17 Sept 38.5 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
18 Sept 38.0 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Sept 37.2 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Sept 35.5 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Sept 37.2 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Sept 35.1 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm High 38
23 Sept 38.5 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Sept 37.2 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
25 Sept after 37.2 °C 22 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Sept after 36.3 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Sept after 36.5 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Sept after 36.9 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 Sept after 37.5 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Sept after 37.6 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Oct after 37.8 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Oct after 38.2 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Oct after 36.9 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Oct after 36.9 °C 17 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Oct after 36.8 °C 20 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
6 Oct after 37.5 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2025
After · 1 Oct 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 23 September 2025 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
PM1030 µg/m³
Optical depth0.54
89101112131415161718192021222324252627
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 · 196Every 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 11 September 2025 and 24 September 2025: 14 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 7,646 hectares (76.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uruçuí (7,691 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.