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BR · Brazil · –

Altamira fire, 11 August 2023 Altamira, Itaituba

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2023, 16:20 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2023 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,514 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 236th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 957 with a page). Number 63 in Brazil in 2023, of 430.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Altamira · 2020Altamira · 2017Altamira · 2021Altamira · 2022

Burnt area
8,514ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
29days
11 Aug 2023 – 8 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
11 Aug
2023
Heat detections
564
in a single hotspot: 163 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
345MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug8 Sept
8 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

11 Aug 2023 · 7 MW · 1 14 Aug 2023 · 4 MW · 1 15 Aug 2023 · 19 MW · 3 16 Aug 2023 · 713 MW · 54 17 Aug 2023 · 245 MW · 24 18 Aug 2023 · 36 MW · 11 19 Aug 2023 · 3 MW · 2 20 Aug 2023 · 219 MW · 25 21 Aug 2023 · 1,297 MW · 82 22 Aug 2023 · 2,162 MW · 97 23 Aug 2023 · 1,165 MW · 89 24 Aug 2023 · 554 MW · 79 25 Aug 2023 · 362 MW · 33 28 Aug 2023 · 29 MW · 3 29 Aug 2023 · 23 MW · 10 30 Aug 2023 · 21 MW · 3 1 Sept 2023 · 407 MW · 12 3 Sept 2023 · 11 MW · 2 4 Sept 2023 · 28 MW · 4 5 Sept 2023 · 60 MW · 8 6 Sept 2023 · 214 MW · 19 8 Sept 2023 · 12 MW · 2
11 Aug 18 Aug 22 Aug 30 Aug 6 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
43km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 143 ha in 2016, 713 ha in 2017, 77 ha in 2018, 3,946 ha in 2019, 1,796 ha in 2020, 6,721 ha in 2021, 4,582 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,648 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.4% of the area of London (85 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
    8,177 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.0 %
  2. Itaituba 123,314 inhabitants
    394 ha reached on 17 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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 36.1 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug 35.0 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Aug 34.9 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Aug 37.3 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Aug 37.0 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Aug 35.9 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Aug 35.9 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Aug 36.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug 37.4 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Aug 37.3 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Aug 36.5 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Aug 35.6 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug 35.9 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
24 Aug 34.4 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Aug 35.0 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
26 Aug 35.0 °C 41 % 16 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
27 Aug 35.9 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Aug 37.1 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 35.7 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
30 Aug 34.6 °C 44 % 27 km/h 1.1 mm High 22
31 Aug 33.5 °C 52 % 26 km/h 1.5 mm High 22
1 Sept 35.2 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Sept 34.7 °C 46 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
3 Sept 36.0 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept 37.2 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept 37.5 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept 36.3 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Sept 34.7 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
8 Sept 36.4 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Sept after 36.1 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Sept after 36.9 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Sept after 37.1 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Sept after 36.0 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
13 Sept after 37.7 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept after 37.1 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Sept after 37.0 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Sept after 36.5 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
17 Sept after 35.3 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
18 Sept after 36.0 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 31.5, a minimum humidity of 32% and 28 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 32.

FWI at the start 31.5
Minimum humidity 32 %
Days without rain 28
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Altamira fire, July 2020
4,622 ha 39 days FWI 31.4 Min. humidity 35 % 173 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

22 days
median duration
4,998 ha
median area
16 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 20 of 32 had it)

It was 1.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 29 days, against 22 days.

Only 6 of its 32 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 12 of 32, 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 2.2 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
43km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 8 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 20 of 32, with a median of 2.2 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2023
After · 15 Sept 2023

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 22 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 179 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 86: 5.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak179 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM10256 µg/m³
Optical depth1.45
13 Aug18 Aug23 Aug28 Aug2 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 · 564Every 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 2023 to 8 September 2023 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 August 2023 to 1 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,514 hectares (85.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Altamira (8,177 ha, 0.0 %); Itaituba (394 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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: 32. Their median duration was 22 days and their median area 4,998 ha; 16 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 6 of its 32 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 12 of 32, 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 2.2 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 1 September 2023 → 8 September 2023.
  2. Start date: 15 August 2023 → 11 August 2023.

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
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 15 August 2023 to 1 September 2023. 564 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 2025, 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.