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BR · Brazil · –

Itaituba fire, July 2022 Itaituba

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2022, 04:58 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2022 in Itaituba, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,696 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 684th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 957 with a page). Number 464 in Brazil in 2022, of 682.

Burnt area
3,696ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
35days
29 Jul 2022 – 1 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Jul
2022
Heat detections
348
in a single hotspot: 157 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
95MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul1 Sept
1 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

29 Jul 2022 · 2 MW · 1 1 Aug 2022 · 34 MW · 7 2 Aug 2022 · 28 MW · 4 3 Aug 2022 · 173 MW · 16 4 Aug 2022 · 396 MW · 29 5 Aug 2022 · 292 MW · 19 6 Aug 2022 · 131 MW · 23 7 Aug 2022 · 65 MW · 26 8 Aug 2022 · 65 MW · 15 9 Aug 2022 · 31 MW · 7 10 Aug 2022 · 96 MW · 11 11 Aug 2022 · 177 MW · 20 12 Aug 2022 · 19 MW · 9 15 Aug 2022 · 116 MW · 10 16 Aug 2022 · 44 MW · 11 17 Aug 2022 · 119 MW · 18 18 Aug 2022 · 71 MW · 10 19 Aug 2022 · 5 MW · 1 20 Aug 2022 · 32 MW · 7 21 Aug 2022 · 124 MW · 21 22 Aug 2022 · 160 MW · 24 23 Aug 2022 · 124 MW · 15 25 Aug 2022 · 2 MW · 1 27 Aug 2022 · 10 MW · 1 29 Aug 2022 · 168 MW · 11 30 Aug 2022 · 107 MW · 15 31 Aug 2022 · 71 MW · 15 1 Sept 2022 · 2 MW · 1
4 Aug 12 Aug 20 Aug 29 Aug

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
37km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 7 Sept.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 248 ha in 2016, 911 ha in 2018, 1,125 ha in 2019, 975 ha in 2020, 900 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,907 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (37 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. Itaituba 123,314 inhabitants where it started
    3,727 ha reached on 29 Jul
    0.1 %

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.

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)
29 Jul 34.7 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul 33.5 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul 33.0 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
1 Aug 33.9 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
2 Aug 33.3 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Aug 34.8 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Aug 35.4 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug 35.9 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Aug 35.3 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
7 Aug 33.0 °C 53 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
8 Aug 32.5 °C 51 % 30 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17
9 Aug 34.3 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
10 Aug 33.9 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Aug 32.9 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Aug 32.9 °C 42 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Aug 34.5 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Aug 33.3 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
15 Aug 34.1 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Aug 34.0 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Aug 34.1 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Aug 34.7 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Aug 33.8 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug 34.3 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Aug 34.4 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug 34.5 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Aug 34.9 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug 35.6 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug 31.8 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
26 Aug 34.8 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
27 Aug 35.4 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Aug 35.1 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm High 31
29 Aug 36.0 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug 36.8 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug 37.0 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Sept 36.8 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept after 36.6 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Sept after 35.9 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Sept after 36.2 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Sept after 36.3 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Sept after 34.8 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm High 33
7 Sept after 34.1 °C 41 % 34 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 21

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 38.0, a minimum humidity of 28% and 43 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 38.0
Minimum humidity 28 %
Days without rain 43
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Altamira fire, August 2019
4,249 ha 16 days FWI 38.9 Min. humidity 28 % 162 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

16 days
median duration
4,057 ha
median area
20 %
went past 10,000 ha
1.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 5 of 15 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (3,696 ha against a median of 4,057 ha) and lasted 35 days, against 16 days.

In 10 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.5 mmfirst rain
7 Sept6 days after it ended
37km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 1 Sept, and on 7 Sept 1.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 5 of 15, with a median of 1.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jul 2022
After · 8 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 18 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 384 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 134: 8.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak384 µg/m³
Days over the guideline25 days
PM10548 µg/m³
Optical depth2.09
4 Aug9 Aug14 Aug19 Aug24 Aug
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 · 348Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2022 to 1 September 2022 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 August 2022 to 25 August 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,696 hectares (37.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Itaituba (3,727 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 16 days and their median area 4,057 ha; 20 % went past 10,000 ha. In 10 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.6 mm.

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. Start date: 1 August 2022 → 29 July 2022.
  2. Last day with fire: 25 August 2022 → 1 September 2022.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 August 2022 to 25 August 2022. 348 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.

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.