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Itaituba fire, August 2020 Itaituba, Novo Progresso

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2020, 16:38 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2020 in Itaituba, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,271 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 391th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1096 with a page). Number 382 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
6,271ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
1 Aug 2020 – 12 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
1 Aug
2020
Heat detections
545
in a single hotspot: 435 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
9.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12345678910111213

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
42km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 146 ha in 2017, 1,104 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,179 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Itaituba 123,314 inhabitants where it started
    5,819 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.1 %
  2. Novo Progresso 33,638 inhabitants
    498 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.0 %

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)
1 Aug 33.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Aug 32.9 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Aug 33.7 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug 34.3 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Aug 33.5 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug 32.9 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 33.0 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Aug 33.1 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Aug 33.2 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug 34.4 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Aug 34.2 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug 33.2 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Aug after 35.8 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Aug after 34.9 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Aug after 35.7 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 35.2 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Aug after 36.7 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug after 35.9 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Aug after 36.0 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Aug after 35.5 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug after 34.5 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug after 33.0 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Aug after 33.3 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug after 31.4 °C 48 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Aug after 34.2 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
26 Aug after 34.4 °C 47 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
27 Aug after 34.8 °C 42 % 24 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2020
After · 19 Aug 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 545Every 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 Itaituba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2020 and 12 August 2020: 12 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 6,271 hectares (62.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Itaituba (5,819 ha, 0.1 %); Novo Progresso (498 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

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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.