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Altamira fire, 4 August 2021 Altamira, Novo Progresso

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2021, 16:26 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2021 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,462 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 99th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1106 with a page). Number 62 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Altamira · 2020Altamira · 2017Novo Progresso · 2024Altamira · 2022

Burnt area
19,462ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
35days
4 Aug 2021 – 7 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
4 Aug
2021
Heat detections
2,252
in a single hotspot: 348 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.1GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug7 Sept
7 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

4 Aug 2021 · 811 MW · 30 5 Aug 2021 · 1,807 MW · 165 6 Aug 2021 · 310 MW · 50 7 Aug 2021 · 48 MW · 9 8 Aug 2021 · 636 MW · 17 9 Aug 2021 · 38 MW · 9 10 Aug 2021 · 161 MW · 6 11 Aug 2021 · 239 MW · 22 12 Aug 2021 · 2,484 MW · 71 13 Aug 2021 · 779 MW · 98 14 Aug 2021 · 26 MW · 17 15 Aug 2021 · 301 MW · 24 16 Aug 2021 · 134 MW · 8 17 Aug 2021 · 1,815 MW · 115 18 Aug 2021 · 8,103 MW · 244 19 Aug 2021 · 4,503 MW · 307 20 Aug 2021 · 3,443 MW · 255 21 Aug 2021 · 2,570 MW · 114 22 Aug 2021 · 990 MW · 104 23 Aug 2021 · 78 MW · 22 24 Aug 2021 · 128 MW · 17 25 Aug 2021 · 1,085 MW · 57 26 Aug 2021 · 1,347 MW · 55 27 Aug 2021 · 1,076 MW · 25 28 Aug 2021 · 213 MW · 15 29 Aug 2021 · 19 MW · 3 30 Aug 2021 · 154 MW · 21 31 Aug 2021 · 1,034 MW · 55 2 Sept 2021 · 7 MW · 4 3 Sept 2021 · 11 MW · 9 4 Sept 2021 · 603 MW · 50 5 Sept 2021 · 2,887 MW · 119 6 Sept 2021 · 281 MW · 70 7 Sept 2021 · 178 MW · 65
4 Aug 9 Aug 14 Aug 18 Aug 19 Aug 24 Aug 29 Aug 4 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
40km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 47 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 354 ha in 2017, 3,099 ha in 2019, 22,396 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 19,051 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (195 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
    19,567 ha reached on 4 Aug
    0.1 %
  2. Novo Progresso 33,638 inhabitants
    89 ha reached on 9 Aug
    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 area0.17 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.17 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)
4 Aug 36.1 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug 36.7 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Aug 35.9 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug 36.1 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Aug 35.6 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Aug 36.2 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Aug 36.4 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 37.1 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 37.2 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Aug 36.6 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug 32.7 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug 34.7 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug 35.9 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug 36.4 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug 37.0 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Aug 37.6 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Aug 36.7 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug 36.8 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Aug 36.7 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Aug 37.4 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Aug 37.5 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Aug 36.1 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Aug 36.0 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug 34.9 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Aug 35.6 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 36.6 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
30 Aug 32.9 °C 52 % 29 km/h 2.6 mm Low 9
31 Aug 30.1 °C 63 % 30 km/h 7.2 mm Very low 3
1 Sept 28.8 °C 66 % 28 km/h 10.8 mm Very low 0
2 Sept 29.8 °C 67 % 24 km/h 12.5 mm Very low 0
3 Sept 32.6 °C 57 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 2
4 Sept 34.2 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
5 Sept 31.8 °C 57 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Low 10
6 Sept 33.4 °C 49 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm Low 10
7 Sept 34.6 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
8 Sept after 34.0 °C 48 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 12
9 Sept after 34.9 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 14
10 Sept after 32.7 °C 50 % 31 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2021
After · 14 Sept 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 · 2,252Every 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 4 August 2021 and 7 September 2021: 35 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 19,462 hectares (194.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Altamira (19,567 ha, 0.1 %); Novo Progresso (89 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2,252 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.