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Altamira fire, 21 July 2020 Altamira, São Félix do Xingu

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2020, 16:51 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2020 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,371 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 179th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1099 with a page). Number 146 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Altamira · 2019Altamira · 2018Altamira · 2019Altamira · 2017

Burnt area
12,371ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
21 Jul 2020 – 23 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
21 Jul
2020
Heat detections
934
in a single hotspot: 213 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
507MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul23 Aug
23 Aug 2020

How it evolved, day by day

21 Jul 2020 · 14 MW · 1 22 Jul 2020 · 1,071 MW · 19 23 Jul 2020 · 624 MW · 27 24 Jul 2020 · 50 MW · 18 25 Jul 2020 · 85 MW · 25 26 Jul 2020 · 30 MW · 4 27 Jul 2020 · 84 MW · 6 28 Jul 2020 · 351 MW · 26 29 Jul 2020 · 63 MW · 11 30 Jul 2020 · 106 MW · 17 31 Jul 2020 · 283 MW · 31 1 Aug 2020 · 282 MW · 16 2 Aug 2020 · 36 MW · 4 3 Aug 2020 · 878 MW · 49 4 Aug 2020 · 177 MW · 20 5 Aug 2020 · 1,970 MW · 75 6 Aug 2020 · 1,377 MW · 101 7 Aug 2020 · 645 MW · 45 8 Aug 2020 · 302 MW · 18 9 Aug 2020 · 928 MW · 50 10 Aug 2020 · 1,379 MW · 66 11 Aug 2020 · 44 MW · 25 12 Aug 2020 · 2,414 MW · 39 13 Aug 2020 · 1,934 MW · 54 14 Aug 2020 · 920 MW · 51 15 Aug 2020 · 146 MW · 23 16 Aug 2020 · 358 MW · 25 17 Aug 2020 · 257 MW · 24 18 Aug 2020 · 47 MW · 7 19 Aug 2020 · 8 MW · 5 20 Aug 2020 · 198 MW · 20 21 Aug 2020 · 93 MW · 17 22 Aug 2020 · 44 MW · 9 23 Aug 2020 · 31 MW · 6
21 Jul 26 Jul 31 Jul 5 Aug 10 Aug 12 Aug 15 Aug 20 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

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,755 ha in 2017, 4,517 ha in 2018, 9,796 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,618 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.8% of the area of London (124 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
    12,455 ha reached on 21 Jul
    0.1 %
  2. São Félix do Xingu 65,418 inhabitants
    3 ha
    0.0 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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)
21 Jul 32.5 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Jul 33.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Jul 32.9 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Jul 32.4 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul 32.7 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Jul 32.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Jul 32.7 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jul 32.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul 32.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul 33.9 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Jul 34.0 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Aug 32.7 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Aug 32.1 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Aug 33.3 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug 33.4 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug 32.5 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Aug 32.2 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Aug 32.4 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug 32.4 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Aug 32.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Aug 33.9 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Aug 34.5 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Aug 33.9 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 34.9 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug 34.7 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Aug 35.4 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Aug 35.5 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug 36.1 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Aug 34.8 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Aug 35.3 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Aug 35.1 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Aug 35.2 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug 31.8 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Aug 33.2 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Aug after 30.7 °C 51 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
25 Aug after 32.6 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
26 Aug after 33.9 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
27 Aug after 34.5 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
28 Aug after 32.6 °C 46 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
29 Aug after 33.1 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
30 Aug after 33.9 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Aug after 35.5 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Sept after 33.7 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Sept after 35.3 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2020
After · 30 Aug 2020

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 · 934Every 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 21 July 2020 to 23 August 2020 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 July 2020 to 17 August 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,371 hectares (123.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Altamira (12,455 ha, 0.1 %); São Félix do Xingu (3 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 17 August 2020 → 23 August 2020.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 July 2020 to 17 August 2020. 934 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.