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Urucurituba fire, October 2018 Urucurituba

Out · last detection 19 Oct 2018, 04:51 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2018 in Urucurituba, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,117 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 416th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 273 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
3,117ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
13 Oct 2018 – 19 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Oct
2018
Heat detections
180
in a single hotspot: 140 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
740MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct19 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

13141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
40km/h · peak gust
45%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 1 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Urucurituba 23,945 inhabitants where it started
    3,138 ha reached on 9 Oct
    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)
9 Oct 34.0 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Oct 34.7 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
11 Oct 33.5 °C 61 % 34 km/h 2.2 mm Low 6
12 Oct 32.3 °C 67 % 30 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 2
13 Oct 34.1 °C 51 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
14 Oct 34.5 °C 48 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
15 Oct 35.5 °C 45 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
16 Oct 34.1 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Oct 34.2 °C 57 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 13
18 Oct 35.3 °C 49 % 30 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 5
19 Oct 31.6 °C 70 % 28 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 0
20 Oct after 27.0 °C 86 % 21 km/h 19.0 mm Very low 0
21 Oct after 32.3 °C 63 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 0
22 Oct after 34.7 °C 55 % 35 km/h 1.2 mm Very low 2
23 Oct after 34.8 °C 51 % 33 km/h 3.0 mm Very low 2
24 Oct after 34.3 °C 51 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
25 Oct after 35.1 °C 49 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
26 Oct after 34.9 °C 54 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Low 9
27 Oct after 33.9 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
28 Oct after 33.5 °C 60 % 28 km/h 0.9 mm Low 6
29 Oct after 34.5 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
30 Oct after 35.2 °C 53 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm Low 9
31 Oct after 34.6 °C 54 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm Low 11
1 Nov after 34.3 °C 56 % 26 km/h 1.6 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Oct 2018
After · 26 Oct 2018

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 180Every 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 Urucurituba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 October 2018 and 19 October 2018: 7 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 3,117 hectares (31.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Urucurituba (3,138 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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.