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Altamira fire, 1 August 2020 Altamira, Novo Progresso

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2020, 17:16 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2020 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 43 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 46,228 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 37th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1100 with a page). Number 23 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

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

Burnt area
46,228ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
43days
1 Aug 2020 – 12 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
1 Aug
2020
Heat detections
3,911
in a single hotspot: 490 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug12 Sept
12 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

1 Aug 2020 · 442 MW · 7 2 Aug 2020 · 5,339 MW · 99 3 Aug 2020 · 703 MW · 104 4 Aug 2020 · 278 MW · 88 5 Aug 2020 · 8,750 MW · 265 6 Aug 2020 · 10,979 MW · 478 7 Aug 2020 · 8,232 MW · 501 8 Aug 2020 · 1,995 MW · 218 9 Aug 2020 · 684 MW · 132 10 Aug 2020 · 1,059 MW · 127 11 Aug 2020 · 1,473 MW · 106 12 Aug 2020 · 1,218 MW · 79 13 Aug 2020 · 255 MW · 38 14 Aug 2020 · 753 MW · 54 15 Aug 2020 · 2,966 MW · 190 16 Aug 2020 · 1,450 MW · 176 17 Aug 2020 · 7,683 MW · 221 18 Aug 2020 · 1,528 MW · 190 19 Aug 2020 · 827 MW · 82 20 Aug 2020 · 285 MW · 66 21 Aug 2020 · 127 MW · 34 22 Aug 2020 · 454 MW · 56 23 Aug 2020 · 226 MW · 31 24 Aug 2020 · 28 MW · 18 25 Aug 2020 · 21 MW · 13 26 Aug 2020 · 6 MW · 1 27 Aug 2020 · 544 MW · 22 28 Aug 2020 · 21 MW · 7 29 Aug 2020 · 22 MW · 5 30 Aug 2020 · 40 MW · 2 31 Aug 2020 · 241 MW · 24 1 Sept 2020 · 462 MW · 43 2 Sept 2020 · 2,210 MW · 74 3 Sept 2020 · 306 MW · 60 4 Sept 2020 · 42 MW · 8 5 Sept 2020 · 567 MW · 37 6 Sept 2020 · 601 MW · 30 7 Sept 2020 · 597 MW · 34 8 Sept 2020 · 1,304 MW · 25 9 Sept 2020 · 1,601 MW · 139 10 Sept 2020 · 116 MW · 19 11 Sept 2020 · 5 MW · 3 12 Sept 2020 · 51 MW · 5
1 Aug 6 Aug 8 Aug 15 Aug 22 Aug 29 Aug 5 Sept 12 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
42km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,981 ha in 2016, 4,985 ha in 2017, 3,545 ha in 2018, 10,916 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,987 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 29% of the area of London (462 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
    37,790 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.2 %
  2. Novo Progresso 33,638 inhabitants
    8,865 ha reached on 2 Aug
    0.2 %

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 area0.69 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.69 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (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)
1 Aug 33.8 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Aug 34.0 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Aug 33.9 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug 34.6 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Aug 34.0 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Aug 33.6 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Aug 33.8 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Aug 34.1 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Aug 34.3 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Aug 34.7 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Aug 36.1 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 35.9 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug 36.7 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug 37.1 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug 36.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Aug 37.3 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Aug 38.3 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Aug 37.4 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Aug 37.0 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug 36.5 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug 35.5 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Aug 34.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Aug 35.6 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug 33.8 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 38
25 Aug 33.3 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
26 Aug 34.1 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
27 Aug 34.1 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
28 Aug 35.3 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug 33.6 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
30 Aug 34.9 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Aug 35.7 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Sept 35.1 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 36.8 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Sept 35.6 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept 36.0 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept 36.8 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Sept 37.0 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept 36.2 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Sept 37.5 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Sept 37.4 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Sept 36.3 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Sept 36.3 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2020
After · 19 Sept 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 · 3,911Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2020 and 12 September 2020: 43 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 46,228 hectares (462.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Altamira (37,790 ha, 0.2 %); Novo Progresso (8,865 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,911 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.