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Itaituba fire, August 2023 Itaituba, Novo Progresso

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2023, 18:01 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2023 in Itaituba, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,835 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 755th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1096 with a page). Number 282 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
3,835ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
10 Aug 2023 – 22 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
10 Aug
2023
Heat detections
393
in a single hotspot: 287 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug22 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
39km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.6 mm on 30 Aug.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 578 ha in 2020, 2,837 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,109 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Itaituba 123,314 inhabitants where it started
    3,844 ha reached on 10 Aug
    0.1 %
  2. Novo Progresso 33,638 inhabitants
    18 ha reached on 23 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)
10 Aug 34.8 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
11 Aug 36.3 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Aug 35.4 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Aug 34.8 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug 37.4 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Aug 37.3 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Aug 36.2 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Aug 36.2 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug 36.7 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Aug 37.3 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Aug 37.7 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug 36.8 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug 36.2 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug after 36.0 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
24 Aug after 34.6 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Aug after 34.9 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
26 Aug after 34.5 °C 43 % 16 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
27 Aug after 35.8 °C 40 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Aug after 37.3 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Aug after 35.5 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Aug after 34.4 °C 47 % 24 km/h 6.6 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2023
After · 29 Aug 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 22 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 116 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak116 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10166 µg/m³
Optical depth1.47
8910111213141516171819202122232425
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 · 393Every 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 10 August 2023 and 22 August 2023: 13 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 3,835 hectares (38.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Itaituba (3,844 ha, 0.1 %); Novo Progresso (18 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 39 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.

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.