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Altamira fire, July 2022 Altamira

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2022, 04:52 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2022 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,477 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 596th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1095 with a page). Number 354 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
4,477ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
19 Jul 2022 – 4 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Jul
2022
Heat detections
192
in a single hotspot: 313 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
34km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,112 ha in 2016, 2,857 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,902 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Altamira 126,279 inhabitants where it started
    4,532 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.0 %

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)
19 Jul 31.9 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jul 32.9 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jul 32.9 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Jul 33.0 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Jul 31.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Jul 32.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jul 33.5 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jul 32.4 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jul 32.7 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Jul 32.3 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jul 33.4 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jul 33.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Jul 32.3 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug 32.6 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug 33.7 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug 33.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Aug 34.0 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Aug after 32.9 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Aug after 33.0 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug after 32.1 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
8 Aug after 30.6 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Aug after 33.9 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Aug after 31.7 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug after 31.8 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Aug after 33.4 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug after 34.4 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 32.2 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2022
After · 11 Aug 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.

Detections table · 192Every 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 19 July 2022 and 4 August 2022: 17 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 4,477 hectares (44.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Altamira (4,532 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 34 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

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.

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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.