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Boca do Acre fire, 2 September 2022 Boca do Acre

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2022, 18:32 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2022 in Boca do Acre, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,934 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 263th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 427 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
3,934ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
2 Sept 2022 – 14 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Sept
2022
Heat detections
219
in a single hotspot: 148 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

23456789101214

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
49km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 133 ha in 2017, 18 ha in 2018, 508 ha in 2019, 882 ha in 2020, 962 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,572 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Boca do Acre 35,447 inhabitants where it started
    3,963 ha reached on 26 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
26 Aug 33.6 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
27 Aug 34.1 °C 49 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
28 Aug 33.9 °C 47 % 28 km/h 2.6 mm Low 10
29 Aug 28.2 °C 47 % 40 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 14
30 Aug 31.6 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
31 Aug 33.7 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Sept 35.3 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Sept 36.3 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Sept 34.0 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Sept 32.4 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Sept 32.8 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Sept 34.3 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Sept 35.0 °C 34 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Sept 35.4 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Sept 35.8 °C 43 % 25 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 20
10 Sept 35.8 °C 45 % 25 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 12
11 Sept 28.1 °C 68 % 20 km/h 14.6 mm Very low 0
12 Sept 33.3 °C 50 % 19 km/h 0.3 mm Low 5
13 Sept 35.7 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Sept 34.9 °C 46 % 28 km/h 4.3 mm Low 6
15 Sept after 24.6 °C 60 % 49 km/h 6.5 mm Very low 1
16 Sept after 31.7 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm Low 6
17 Sept after 35.1 °C 39 % 17 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13
18 Sept after 35.3 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
19 Sept after 36.0 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
20 Sept after 35.3 °C 43 % 24 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 4
21 Sept after 36.3 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
22 Sept after 35.0 °C 43 % 27 km/h 1.6 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2022
After · 21 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 7 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 383 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 256: 17 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak383 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM10548 µg/m³
Optical depth2.53
311234567891011121314151617
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 · 219Every 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 Boca do Acre fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 September 2022 and 14 September 2022: 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 3,934 hectares (39.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Boca do Acre (3,963 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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

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.