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Arraias fire, 8 September 2023 Arraias

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2023, 16:06 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2023 in Arraias, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,234 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1111th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 387 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,234ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
8 Sept 2023 – 13 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Sept
2023
Heat detections
77
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
340MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

8910111314

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
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 97 ha in 2016, 442 ha in 2017, 660 ha in 2018, 1,349 ha in 2019, 329 ha in 2020, 1,960 ha in 2021, 373 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,756 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Arraias 10,287 inhabitants where it started
    3,255 ha reached on 8 Sept
    0.6 %

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)
8 Sept 33.3 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Sept 34.9 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept 34.7 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Sept 34.9 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 35.2 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Sept 36.4 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Sept after 36.3 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Sept after 36.3 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept after 36.8 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Sept after 35.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Sept after 36.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept after 36.8 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Sept after 36.7 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Sept after 36.7 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Sept after 36.3 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Sept after 37.8 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Sept after 37.8 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2023
After · 20 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 16 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
Optical depth0.26
678910111213141516
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 · 77Every 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 Arraias fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2023 and 13 September 2023: 6 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 3,234 hectares (32.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Arraias (3,255 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

Report an error
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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.