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Almas fire, August 2022 Almas, Ponte Alta do Tocantins, Pindorama do Tocantins

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2022, 04:15 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2022 in Almas, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,594 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 45th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 27 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
23,594ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
27 Aug 2022 – 13 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
27 Aug
2022
Heat detections
725
in a single hotspot: 235 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

27282930311234567891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
45km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,666 ha in 2016, 893 ha in 2017, 1,961 ha in 2018, 5,368 ha in 2019, 3,741 ha in 2020, 60 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,523 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Almas 6,499 inhabitants where it started
    16,972 ha reached on 27 Aug
    4.2 %
  2. Ponte Alta do Tocantins 7,586 inhabitants
    5,459 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.8 %
  3. Pindorama do Tocantins 4,478 inhabitants
    1,295 ha reached on 1 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)
23 Aug 32.8 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Aug 34.5 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Aug 33.0 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Aug 33.7 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Aug 33.4 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Aug 33.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug 34.3 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Aug 34.8 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Aug 32.9 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Sept 32.2 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Sept 32.8 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Sept 34.1 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Sept 35.4 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Sept 35.7 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Sept 35.1 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Sept 34.7 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Sept 34.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Sept 35.3 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Sept 35.8 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Sept 36.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Sept 36.3 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Sept 35.7 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Sept after 35.8 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Sept after 36.8 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept after 34.4 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 49
17 Sept after 35.8 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Sept after 36.1 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Sept after 35.7 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Sept after 36.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Sept after 35.7 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46
22 Sept after 33.6 °C 36 % 34 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2022
After · 20 Sept 2022

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 11 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 101 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak101 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10145 µg/m³
Optical depth0.90
2526272829303112345678910111213141516
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 · 725Every 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 Almas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 August 2022 and 13 September 2022: 18 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 23,594 hectares (235.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Almas (16,972 ha, 4.2 %); Ponte Alta do Tocantins (5,459 ha, 0.8 %); Pindorama do Tocantins (1,295 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.