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Cáceres fire, October 2023 Cáceres

Out · last detection 8 Oct 2023, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2023 in Cáceres, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,708 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1163th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 194 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
4,708ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
2 Oct 2023 – 8 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Oct
2023
Heat detections
342
in a single hotspot: 131 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct8 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2345678

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

40°high
45km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,390 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Cáceres 89,681 inhabitants where it started
    4,730 ha reached on 28 Sept
    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)
25 Sept 40.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Sept 40.5 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept 36.5 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
28 Sept 33.7 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Sept 37.6 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
30 Sept 34.8 °C 49 % 22 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 18
1 Oct 37.6 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
2 Oct 38.6 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Oct 39.0 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Oct 39.1 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Oct 38.3 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Oct 40.2 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Oct 38.3 °C 37 % 44 km/h 1.8 mm High 29
8 Oct 33.8 °C 55 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
9 Oct after 35.3 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
10 Oct after 36.4 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
11 Oct after 39.8 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Oct after 38.8 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
13 Oct after 32.9 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Oct after 37.8 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Oct after 40.3 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Oct after 39.6 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
17 Oct after 40.1 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Oct after 40.6 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Sept 2023
After · 15 Oct 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 30 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 122 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak122 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10175 µg/m³
Optical depth1.32
301234567891011
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 · 342Every 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 Cáceres fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 October 2023 and 8 October 2023: 7 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 4,708 hectares (47.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cáceres (4,730 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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
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.