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Wanderley fire, September 2021 Barra, Wanderley, Muquém do São Francisco

Out · last detection 19 Oct 2021, 16:37 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2021 in Wanderley, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 216,996 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the largest fire in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). The largest in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
216,996ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
17 Sept 2021 – 19 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
17 Sept
2021
Heat detections
12,766
in a single hotspot: 1,328 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
395.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Oct 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept19 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021222324252627282930123456789101112141516171819

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
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 31.9 mm on 2 Nov.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,089 ha in 2017, 8,787 ha in 2018, 54 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,661 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Barra 51,092 inhabitants
    204,096 ha reached on 17 Sept
    18 %
  2. Wanderley 12,968 inhabitants where it started
    11,306 ha reached on 17 Sept
    3.8 %
  3. Muquém do São Francisco 10,443 inhabitants
    3,263 ha reached on 25 Sept
    0.8 %

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 36.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept 35.4 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Sept 35.7 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Sept 34.3 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept 35.7 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Sept 36.5 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept 35.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Sept 34.2 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Sept 33.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Sept 35.3 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept 36.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Sept 36.7 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Sept 38.7 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
23 Sept 35.3 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Sept 34.1 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Sept 33.5 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Sept 33.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept 34.7 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Sept 34.6 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Sept 35.2 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Sept 36.0 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Oct 34.8 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Oct 35.1 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Oct 36.7 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Oct 37.2 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Oct 37.0 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Oct 36.8 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Oct 36.8 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Oct 37.9 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Oct 37.3 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Oct 36.3 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Oct 34.3 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Oct 37.3 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
13 Oct 32.8 °C 37 % 30 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 17
14 Oct 36.6 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Oct 36.7 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Oct 36.7 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Oct 37.6 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Oct 36.3 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Oct 33.8 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.9 mm High 33
20 Oct after 35.5 °C 29 % 30 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 19
21 Oct after 34.1 °C 35 % 30 km/h 11.1 mm Low 6
22 Oct after 30.0 °C 51 % 34 km/h 37.4 mm Very low 1
23 Oct after 27.8 °C 61 % 24 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 0
24 Oct after 32.2 °C 45 % 32 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 2
25 Oct after 33.3 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm Low 8
26 Oct after 34.4 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
27 Oct after 35.0 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
28 Oct after 34.0 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
29 Oct after 34.3 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
30 Oct after 34.0 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
31 Oct after 33.8 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
1 Nov after 33.2 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Nov after 31.4 °C 46 % 31 km/h 31.9 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2021
After · 26 Oct 2021

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 · 12,766Every 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 Wanderley fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2021 and 19 October 2021: 33 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 216,996 hectares (2,170.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Barra (204,096 ha, 18 %); Wanderley (11,306 ha, 3.8 %); Muquém do São Francisco (3,263 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.

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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.