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Altamira fire, 2 August 2019 Altamira

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2019, 17:22 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2019 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,972 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 125th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1098 with a page). Number 78 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Novo Progresso · 2017Altamira · 2016Altamira · 2026Altamira · 2020

Burnt area
15,972ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
2 Aug 2019 – 29 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Aug
2019
Heat detections
1,431
in a single hotspot: 356 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
707MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug29 Aug
30 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

2 Aug 2019 · 2 MW · 1 3 Aug 2019 · 672 MW · 25 4 Aug 2019 · 3,324 MW · 84 5 Aug 2019 · 722 MW · 82 6 Aug 2019 · 768 MW · 42 7 Aug 2019 · 6,395 MW · 166 8 Aug 2019 · 1,174 MW · 221 9 Aug 2019 · 1,384 MW · 178 10 Aug 2019 · 957 MW · 82 11 Aug 2019 · 1,452 MW · 41 12 Aug 2019 · 709 MW · 89 13 Aug 2019 · 398 MW · 74 14 Aug 2019 · 582 MW · 46 15 Aug 2019 · 21 MW · 16 16 Aug 2019 · 43 MW · 6 17 Aug 2019 · 34 MW · 8 18 Aug 2019 · 75 MW · 33 19 Aug 2019 · 390 MW · 37 20 Aug 2019 · 177 MW · 30 21 Aug 2019 · 91 MW · 13 22 Aug 2019 · 5 MW · 2 23 Aug 2019 · 7 MW · 4 24 Aug 2019 · 6 MW · 3 25 Aug 2019 · 194 MW · 11 26 Aug 2019 · 17 MW · 9 27 Aug 2019 · 630 MW · 32 28 Aug 2019 · 102 MW · 47 29 Aug 2019 · 127 MW · 41 30 Aug 2019 · 57 MW · 8
2 Aug 7 Aug 12 Aug 17 Aug 22 Aug 27 Aug

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
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,311 ha in 2016, 8,897 ha in 2017, 685 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,779 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 10% of the area of London (160 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Altamira 126,279 inhabitants where it started
    16,088 ha reached on 2 Aug
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.72 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.72 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
2 Aug 35.3 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Aug 33.6 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Aug 33.6 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Aug 32.8 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Aug 33.8 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Aug 34.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug 34.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Aug 35.0 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug 34.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug 34.8 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Aug 35.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Aug 36.6 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Aug 35.9 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Aug 34.4 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug 35.0 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug 34.8 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Aug 34.7 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Aug 35.6 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 35.2 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug 33.9 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
22 Aug 34.3 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
23 Aug 35.1 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.9 mm High 22
24 Aug 33.5 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
25 Aug 33.8 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
26 Aug 34.7 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Aug 35.3 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug 36.1 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Aug 35.7 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug after 35.9 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug after 34.9 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Sept after 34.2 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept after 34.9 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
3 Sept after 34.7 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
4 Sept after 36.0 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
5 Sept after 35.3 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
6 Sept after 34.7 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
7 Sept after 35.0 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
8 Sept after 35.5 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2019
After · 5 Sept 2019

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 · 1,431Every 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 Altamira fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 August 2019 to 29 August 2019 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2019 to 22 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,972 hectares (159.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Altamira (16,088 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 22 August 2019 → 29 August 2019.
  2. Start date: 3 August 2019 → 2 August 2019.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 August 2019 to 22 August 2019. 1,431 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.