Skip to content
worldfires
en
BR · Brazil · →

Cotegipe fire, 30 September 2023 Cotegipe

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2023, 16:12 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2023 in Cotegipe, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,675 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 113th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 467 with a page). Number 64 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mansidão · 2020Cotegipe · 2016Cotegipe · 2021Cotegipe · 2021

Burnt area
8,675ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
30 Sept 2023 – 21 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Sept
2023
Heat detections
260
in a single hotspot: 169 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
253MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept21 Oct
21 Oct 2023

How it evolved, day by day

30 Sept 2023 · 12 MW · 1 1 Oct 2023 · 15 MW · 3 5 Oct 2023 · 207 MW · 9 6 Oct 2023 · 297 MW · 15 7 Oct 2023 · 167 MW · 15 8 Oct 2023 · 41 MW · 4 9 Oct 2023 · 148 MW · 32 10 Oct 2023 · 100 MW · 6 11 Oct 2023 · 170 MW · 6 12 Oct 2023 · 72 MW · 7 13 Oct 2023 · 209 MW · 14 14 Oct 2023 · 26 MW · 5 15 Oct 2023 · 199 MW · 15 16 Oct 2023 · 18 MW · 1 17 Oct 2023 · 60 MW · 7 18 Oct 2023 · 254 MW · 21 19 Oct 2023 · 1,917 MW · 55 20 Oct 2023 · 632 MW · 38 21 Oct 2023 · 260 MW · 6
30 Sept 6 Oct 9 Oct 12 Oct 15 Oct 18 Oct 19 Oct 21 Oct

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
38km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 26 Oct.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,510 ha in 2016, 1,577 ha in 2018, 3,201 ha in 2020, 3,893 ha in 2021, 91 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,857 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.5% of the area of London (87 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Cotegipe 13,063 inhabitants where it started
    8,721 ha reached on 30 Sept
    2.0 %

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 2025
Built-up area0.15 ha
Residents≈ 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.15 hectares of built-up land and about 20 residents (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)
30 Sept 39.4 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Oct 39.3 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Oct 39.4 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Oct 39.3 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Oct 39.3 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Oct 38.0 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Oct 38.4 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 44
7 Oct 38.2 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Oct 38.7 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Oct 38.8 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Oct 39.5 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Oct 38.4 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Oct 39.0 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Oct 40.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Oct 40.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Oct 38.2 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Oct 37.9 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Oct 38.1 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Oct 39.0 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Oct 40.0 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Oct 39.7 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Oct 39.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Oct after 39.0 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Oct after 39.2 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Oct after 39.8 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Oct after 36.6 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Oct after 35.7 °C 38 % 40 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2023
After · 28 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 3 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 122 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak122 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM10173 µg/m³
Optical depth1.58
34567891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 260Every 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 Cotegipe fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 September 2023 to 21 October 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 October 2023 to 20 October 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,675 hectares (86.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cotegipe (8,721 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 20 October 2023 → 21 October 2023.
  2. Start date: 5 October 2023 → 30 September 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 October 2023 to 20 October 2023. 260 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.