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Altamira fire, 11 August 2022 Altamira

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2022, 04:53 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2022 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,130 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 401th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1112 with a page). Number 227 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Altamira · 2020Altamira · 2019Altamira · 2017Altamira · 2026

Burnt area
6,130ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
11 Aug 2022 – 12 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Aug
2022
Heat detections
477
in a single hotspot: 501 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
269MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug12 Sept
12 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

11 Aug 2022 · 163 MW · 43 12 Aug 2022 · 59 MW · 18 13 Aug 2022 · 69 MW · 8 14 Aug 2022 · 15 MW · 12 16 Aug 2022 · 2 MW · 1 19 Aug 2022 · 11 MW · 2 20 Aug 2022 · 355 MW · 35 21 Aug 2022 · 3,713 MW · 64 22 Aug 2022 · 1,030 MW · 84 23 Aug 2022 · 372 MW · 41 24 Aug 2022 · 120 MW · 12 25 Aug 2022 · 104 MW · 15 26 Aug 2022 · 26 MW · 16 27 Aug 2022 · 27 MW · 6 28 Aug 2022 · 27 MW · 4 29 Aug 2022 · 83 MW · 8 30 Aug 2022 · 4 MW · 1 31 Aug 2022 · 8 MW · 3 1 Sept 2022 · 24 MW · 15 2 Sept 2022 · 31 MW · 10 3 Sept 2022 · 75 MW · 10 4 Sept 2022 · 20 MW · 2 5 Sept 2022 · 1,335 MW · 12 6 Sept 2022 · 56 MW · 38 7 Sept 2022 · 54 MW · 8 8 Sept 2022 · 5 MW · 2 9 Sept 2022 · 12 MW · 2 11 Sept 2022 · 5 MW · 3 12 Sept 2022 · 2 MW · 2
11 Aug 19 Aug 21 Aug 24 Aug 29 Aug 3 Sept 8 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

36°high
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 16 Sept.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,944 ha in 2017, 1,396 ha in 2019, 2,229 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,636 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.9% of the area of London (61 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
    6,202 ha reached on 11 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 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)
11 Aug 32.5 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Aug 33.7 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Aug 34.4 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Aug 32.7 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Aug 33.6 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Aug 33.5 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Aug 34.1 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Aug 34.9 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Aug 33.2 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Aug 33.5 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug 34.4 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug 34.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug 33.5 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Aug 35.6 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug 32.7 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Aug 33.2 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Aug 34.4 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug 34.3 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Aug 36.3 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Aug 35.3 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Aug 35.2 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept 35.7 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 35.7 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Sept 35.2 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Sept 36.4 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Sept 35.9 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Sept 34.7 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
7 Sept 34.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Sept 35.0 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 34.9 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Sept 35.5 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept 34.2 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Sept 34.3 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Sept after 30.7 °C 50 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Sept after 33.7 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Sept after 33.7 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
16 Sept after 32.3 °C 47 % 25 km/h 3.1 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2022
After · 19 Sept 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 407 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 229: 15 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak407 µg/m³
Days over the guideline30 days
PM10583 µg/m³
Optical depth1.72
161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314
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 · 477Every 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 11 August 2022 to 12 September 2022 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 August 2022 to 11 September 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,130 hectares (61.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Altamira (6,202 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 11 September 2022 → 12 September 2022.
  2. Start date: 18 August 2022 → 11 August 2022.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 August 2022 to 11 September 2022. 477 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.