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Baliza fire, September 2023 Baliza

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2023, 17:08 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2023 in Baliza, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,631 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 223th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 548 with a page). Number 140 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
5,631ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
7 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Sept
2023
Heat detections
268
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213141516

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
47km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,426 ha in 2017, 4,454 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,552 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Baliza 3,351 inhabitants where it started
    5,663 ha reached on 7 Sept
    3.2 %

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)
7 Sept 34.3 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
8 Sept 34.9 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 34.9 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Sept 35.9 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept 35.7 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Sept 37.1 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Sept 37.1 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Sept 27.6 °C 51 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
15 Sept 34.0 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
16 Sept 36.9 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 38
17 Sept after 35.0 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept after 33.3 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
19 Sept after 36.2 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Sept after 37.6 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 39
21 Sept after 37.3 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Sept after 37.1 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Sept after 37.6 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Sept after 37.3 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept after 37.0 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Sept after 38.1 °C 27 % 29 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 · 31 Aug 2023
After · 23 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 14 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1028 µg/m³
Optical depth0.68
5678910111213141516171819
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 · 268Every 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 Baliza fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 September 2023 and 16 September 2023: 10 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 5,631 hectares (56.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Baliza (5,663 ha, 3.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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
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.

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.