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Ipixuna do Pará fire, September 2023 Tailândia, Ipixuna do Pará

Out · last detection 9 Oct 2023, 16:39 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2023 in Ipixuna do Pará, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,249 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 488th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1095 with a page). Number 155 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
5,249ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
17 Sept 2023 – 9 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
17 Sept
2023
Heat detections
363
in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept9 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021222324252627282930123456789

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
41km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 16 Oct.

This area had burned before

54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 51 ha in 2017, 2,846 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Tailândia 72,493 inhabitants
    4,710 ha reached on 12 Sept
    1.1 %
  2. Ipixuna do Pará where it started
    577 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.1 %

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)
10 Sept 34.6 °C 46 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
11 Sept 34.7 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
12 Sept 34.6 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Sept 35.6 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Sept 33.4 °C 53 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Sept 35.8 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
16 Sept 34.6 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
17 Sept 35.0 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Sept 35.5 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Sept 35.5 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Sept 34.9 °C 49 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Sept 34.7 °C 50 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
22 Sept 33.9 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
23 Sept 35.6 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Sept 35.6 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Sept 36.5 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Sept 35.8 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Sept 36.3 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
28 Sept 35.2 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Sept 36.7 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Sept 37.0 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Oct 35.6 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Oct 35.8 °C 44 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Oct 35.7 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Oct 34.6 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
5 Oct 35.7 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Oct 35.1 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Oct 34.5 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
8 Oct 35.0 °C 49 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
9 Oct 35.4 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Oct after 34.4 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
11 Oct after 33.4 °C 52 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
12 Oct after 34.6 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
13 Oct after 35.7 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
14 Oct after 37.1 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
15 Oct after 35.8 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
16 Oct after 34.7 °C 50 % 28 km/h 2.4 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2023
After · 16 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 12 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1078 µg/m³
Optical depth0.95
15161718192021222324252627282930123456789101112
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 · 363Every 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 Ipixuna do Pará fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2023 and 9 October 2023: 23 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 5,249 hectares (52.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tailândia (4,710 ha, 1.1 %); Ipixuna do Pará (577 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.