Burned area
satellite only3,896ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 4 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BR · Brazil · –
Altamira fire, 4 September 2023 Altamira
Out · last detection 16 Sept 2023, 04:33 UTC
The fire started on 4 September 2023 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,896 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 635th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 957 with a page). Number 264 in Brazil in 2023, of 430.
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Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches 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 only13days
4 Sept 2023 to 16 Sept 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 16 Sept 2023, 04:33 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 only4 Sept 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 4 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only407MW
Total radiative power on 10 September 2023; hotspots that day: 40.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 10 Sept 2023
+− 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
model28.2FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 3.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 4 Sept 2023, 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
model36.6°C · 31% RH
High of 36.6 °C and minimum humidity of 31% on 5 September 2023; gusts of 46 km/h on 8 September 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 4 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
- 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 weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 18 September 2023 → 16 September 2023.
-
logStart date: 29 August 2023 → 4 September 2023.
-
logLast day with fire: 16 September 2023 → 18 September 2023.
-
logStart date: 4 September 2023 → 29 August 2023.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/altamira-2023-09-3?v=2026-10-27A 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-2023-09-3.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-09-04 | 4 | 15 | 35.4 | 22.8 | 36 | 11 | 30.2 | 0 | 28.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-05 | 12 | 95 | 36.6 | 23.6 | 31 | 12.1 | 32.8 | 0 | 32.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-06 | 11 | 114 | 34.9 | 23.2 | 35 | 11.2 | 29.5 | 0 | 31.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-07 | 3 | 72 | 33.4 | 24.1 | 46 | 11.6 | 33.1 | 0.4 | 28.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-08 | 20 | 92 | 35.4 | 23.4 | 37 | 12.5 | 46.1 | 0 | 29.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-09 | 35 | 206 | 35.3 | 22.9 | 39 | 11.4 | 36.4 | 0 | 28.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-10 | 40 | 407 | 36 | 23.3 | 35 | 12.1 | 40.7 | 0 | 30.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-11 | 42 | 370 | 34.9 | 23.7 | 37 | 12.1 | 36.7 | 0 | 30.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-12 | 39 | 407 | 35.1 | 24.2 | 36 | 11.9 | 34.6 | 0 | 30.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-13 | 27 | 81 | 36 | 23.4 | 35 | 14.9 | 38.2 | 0 | 33.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-14 | 20 | 75 | 36.2 | 22.1 | 34 | 11.6 | 29.9 | 0 | 31.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-15 | 18 | 50 | 36.5 | 23.5 | 36 | 12.3 | 36 | 0 | 32 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-16 | 1 | 3 | 35.6 | 24.9 | 44 | 11.5 | 32 | 0.3 | 30.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-09-17 | 0 | 0 | 34.7 | 24.4 | 45 | 12.8 | 37.1 | 0 | 30.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-18 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 23.2 | 40 | 11.2 | 33.8 | 0 | 29.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-19 | 0 | 0 | 35.1 | 23.5 | 40 | 9.4 | 26.6 | 0.2 | 28.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-20 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 23.1 | 38 | 10.4 | 31 | 0 | 29.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-21 | 0 | 0 | 36.2 | 23.9 | 41 | 6.5 | 24.8 | 0.3 | 26.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-22 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 22.7 | 50 | 9.7 | 33.5 | 0.3 | 26 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-23 | 0 | 0 | 33.6 | 23.5 | 45 | 10 | 34.6 | 0 | 26.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-24 | 0 | 0 | 35.5 | 23.9 | 41 | 8.9 | 29.5 | 0 | 26 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-25 | 0 | 0 | 37 | 23.6 | 38 | 8.9 | 27.4 | 0.1 | 27.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-09-26 | 0 | 0 | 36.9 | 25.1 | 40 | 7.9 | 24.8 | 0.2 | 27.4 | alto | 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
- 3,896ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 4 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 272
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 153MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
4 Sept16 Sept
16 Sept 2023
How it evolved, day by day
4 Sept
7 Sept
10 Sept
13 Sept
16 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
37°high
46km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 116 ha in 2016, 298 ha in 2017, 59 ha in 2019, 411 ha in 2020, 3,432 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,698 ha that had burned before.
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
-
3,920 ha0.0 %
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 2025Built-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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Sept | 35.4 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Sept | 36.6 °C | 31 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Sept | 34.9 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Sept | 33.4 °C | 46 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Sept | 35.4 °C | 37 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Sept | 35.3 °C | 39 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Sept | 36.0 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Sept | 34.9 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Sept | 35.1 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Sept | 36.0 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 14 Sept | 36.2 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Sept | 36.5 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Sept | 35.6 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Sept after | 35.1 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Sept after | 34.9 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Sept after | 36.2 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Sept after | 33.5 °C | 50 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 45 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Sept after | 35.5 °C | 41 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 25 Sept after | 37.0 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 26 Sept after | 36.9 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 27 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 28.2, a minimum humidity of 36% and 3 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 5.
FWI at the start
28.2
Minimum humidity
36 %
Days without rain
3
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Altamira fire, 4 September 2023
3,896 ha
13 days
FWI 28.2
Min. humidity 36 %
Novo Progresso fire, August 2019
9,193 ha
14 days
FWI 30.8
Min. humidity 35 %
211 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.1 mm on 23 Aug.
Altamira fire, September 2025
3,495 ha
9 days
FWI 33.6
Min. humidity 38 %
22 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.7 mm on 18 Sept.
Altamira fire, September 2022
3,107 ha
10 days
FWI 33.4
Min. humidity 26 %
21 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.3 mm on 17 Sept.
Altamira fire, September 2017
3,661 ha
17 days
FWI 36.3
Min. humidity 29 %
29 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 20 Sept.
Altamira fire, September 2017
4,023 ha
18 days
FWI 36.2
Min. humidity 31 %
234 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.0 mm on 25 Sept.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 5. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
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
46km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 16 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.
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 2017.
- 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 · 28 Aug 2023
After · 23 Sept 2023
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 14 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 99 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak99 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10142 µg/m³
Optical depth1.03
WHO 15
2 Sept6 Sept10 Sept14 Sept18 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 · 0Every 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
- 10,749 haAltamira28 September 2026 · 21 days · 8 km away
- 9,011 haSão Félix do Xingu13 August 2020 · 38 days · 16 km away
- 11,780 haAltamira1 August 2020 · 26 days · 23 km away
- 10,605 haAltamira14 September 2026 · 11 days · 23 km away
- 10,945 haAltamira23 August 2024 · 32 days · 30 km away
- 15,787 haAltamira29 August 2024 · 27 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Altamira fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2023 and 16 September 2023: 13 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 3,896 hectares (39.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Altamira (3,920 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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 · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 18 September 2023 → 16 September 2023.
- Start date: 29 August 2023 → 4 September 2023.
- Last day with fire: 16 September 2023 → 18 September 2023.
- Start date: 4 September 2023 → 29 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
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. No 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.
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.