Burned area
satellite only3,176ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 24 Aug 2022 – 4 Sept 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BR · Brazil · –
Altamira fire, 24 August 2022 Altamira
Out · last detection 4 Sept 2022, 16:39 UTC
The fire started on 24 August 2022 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,176 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 889th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 957 with a page). Number 622 in Brazil in 2022, of 682.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only12days
24 Aug 2022 to 4 Sept 2022: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 4 Sept 2022, 16:39 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only24 Aug 2022
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 24 Aug 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only169
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 117 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 24 Aug 2022 – 4 Sept 2022
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only1,314MW
Total radiative power on 2 September 2022; hotspots that day: 60.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 2 Sept 2022
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model36.7FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 17.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 24 Aug 2022, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model37.5°C · 21% RH
High of 37.5 °C and minimum humidity of 21% on 2 September 2022; gusts of 36 km/h on 27 August 2022.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 24 Aug 2022 – 4 Sept 2022
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 3,176 ha
- Dates
- 24 Aug 2022 – 4 Sept 2022
- Name
- Altamira
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/altamira-2022-08-23?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire altamira-2022-08-23.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-08-24 | 5 | 165 | 36.2 | 22.8 | 27 | 9.5 | 27 | 0 | 36.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-08-25 | 8 | 60 | 32 | 21.9 | 45 | 9.4 | 31.7 | 0 | 28.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-08-26 | 9 | 95 | 34.2 | 22.8 | 40 | 9.7 | 30.6 | 0.3 | 29 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-08-27 | 6 | 44 | 35 | 22.8 | 34 | 9.7 | 36.4 | 0.3 | 30 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-08-28 | 2 | 8 | 35.8 | 22.6 | 27 | 9.5 | 31.3 | 0 | 34 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-08-29 | 0 | 0 | 36.4 | 20.6 | 21 | 11.3 | 30.6 | 0 | 40.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-08-30 | 2 | 6 | 37.2 | 21 | 24 | 7.8 | 24.1 | 0 | 37.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-08-31 | 22 | 797 | 36.6 | 22.2 | 23 | 9.7 | 25.2 | 0 | 39 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-01 | 9 | 88 | 37.3 | 22.7 | 23 | 12.8 | 34.2 | 0 | 42.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-02 | 60 | 1,314 | 37.5 | 24.2 | 21 | 12.6 | 33.8 | 0 | 42.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-03 | 35 | 189 | 36.7 | 22 | 23 | 13.1 | 34.2 | 0 | 43.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-04 | 11 | 70 | 37.2 | 22.4 | 23 | 12.1 | 33.5 | 0 | 42.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-09-05 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 23.5 | 32 | 11 | 31.7 | 0 | 38.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-06 | 0 | 0 | 34.7 | 23.9 | 39 | 11.5 | 28.1 | 2.3 | 16.7 | moderado | 0 |
| 2022-09-07 | 0 | 0 | 34.7 | 23.1 | 36 | 10.3 | 29.9 | 0.1 | 26.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-08 | 0 | 0 | 35.2 | 23.8 | 35 | 10 | 31 | 0.1 | 28.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-09 | 0 | 0 | 35.1 | 23.9 | 32 | 12 | 36 | 0 | 32 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-10 | 0 | 0 | 36.7 | 23.8 | 30 | 11.9 | 31.3 | 0 | 34 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-11 | 0 | 0 | 36.4 | 24.1 | 33 | 8.5 | 24.1 | 0 | 31.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-12 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 23.9 | 41 | 8.8 | 16.9 | 0.3 | 30.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-13 | 0 | 0 | 31.2 | 22.9 | 54 | 7.6 | 26.3 | 0.2 | 22.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-14 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 21.5 | 42 | 8.9 | 31.3 | 0.2 | 24.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-15 | 0 | 0 | 36.1 | 22.9 | 37 | 9.3 | 21.2 | 0 | 28 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-16 | 0 | 0 | 33.6 | 23.9 | 46 | 9.8 | 26.6 | 0.1 | 27.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-09-17 | 0 | 0 | 36.4 | 24.1 | 39 | 8.1 | 28.4 | 3 | 12.1 | moderado | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 3,176ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 24 Aug 2022 – 4 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 169
- in a single hotspot: 117 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 258MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
24 Aug4 Sept
4 Sept 2022
How it evolved, day by day
24 Aug
27 Aug
2 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
36km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity
It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 17 Sept.
This area had burned before
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 689 ha in 2017, 1,281 ha in 2019, 1,582 ha in 2020, 593 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,862 ha that had burned before.
- 1,281 ha Altamira fire, August 2019 15,972 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 689 ha Novo Progresso fire, August 2017 28,978 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1 ha Altamira fire, August 2021 6,800 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
3,199 ha reached on 24 Aug0.0 %
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 2020Built-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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Aug | 36.2 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Aug | 32.0 °C | 45 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Aug | 34.2 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 29 |
| 27 Aug | 35.0 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Aug | 35.8 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Aug | 36.4 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Aug | 37.2 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 31 Aug | 36.6 °C | 23 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Sept | 37.3 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Sept | 37.5 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 3 Sept | 36.7 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Sept | 37.2 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Sept after | 36.5 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 2.3 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 7 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 8 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Sept after | 35.1 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Sept after | 36.7 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Sept after | 36.4 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Sept after | 35.3 °C | 41 % | 17 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 13 Sept after | 31.2 °C | 54 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 23 |
| 14 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 25 |
| 15 Sept after | 36.1 °C | 37 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 46 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Sept after | 36.4 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 3.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 36.7, a minimum humidity of 27% and 17 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 33.
FWI at the start
36.7
Minimum humidity
27 %
Days without rain
17
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Altamira fire, 24 August 2022
3,176 ha
12 days
FWI 36.7
Min. humidity 27 %
Altamira fire, July 2019
3,355 ha
12 days
FWI 36.0
Min. humidity 25 %
64 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Altamira fire, September 2024
4,687 ha
22 days
FWI 36.6
Min. humidity 25 %
166 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.5 mm on 27 Sept.
Altamira fire, August 2019
4,470 ha
13 days
FWI 35.2
Min. humidity 28 %
62 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Novo Progresso fire, July 2019
3,428 ha
20 days
FWI 33.9
Min. humidity 28 %
90 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Altamira fire, August 2017
4,119 ha
20 days
FWI 36.0
Min. humidity 27 %
54 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.3 mm on 21 Sept.
What happened to them
- 17 days
- median duration
- 3,871 ha
- median area
- 3 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 2.0 mm
- rain at the end (median; 16 of 33 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (3,176 ha against a median of 3,871 ha) and lasted 12 days, against 17 days.
In 17 of 33, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
3.0 mmfirst rain
17 Sept13 days after it ended
36km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 4 Sept, and on 17 Sept 3.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 33, with a median of 2.0 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 17 Aug 2022
After · 11 Sept 2022
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 23 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 264 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 121: 8.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak264 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM10378 µg/m³
Optical depth1.36
WHO 15
22 Aug26 Aug30 Aug3 Sept7 Sept
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 169Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,972 haAltamira2 August 2019 · 28 days · 9 km away
- 10,102 haAltamira7 August 2020 · 18 days · 15 km away
- 9,591 haAltamira19 September 2026 · 35 days · 16 km away
- 28,978 haNovo Progresso24 August 2017 · 33 days · 34 km away
- 9,193 haNovo Progresso5 August 2019 · 14 days · 36 km away
- 14,889 haAltamira15 July 2021 · 43 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Altamira fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2022 and 4 September 2022: 12 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 3,176 hectares (31.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Altamira (3,199 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 33. Their median duration was 17 days and their median area 3,871 ha; 3 % went past 10,000 ha. In 17 of 33, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.
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 With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 169 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.
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.