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Lizarda fire, 27 September 2022 Lizarda

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2022, 03:56 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2022 in Lizarda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,121 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1184th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 639 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,121ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
27 Sept 2022 – 30 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Sept
2022
Heat detections
73
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
437MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept30 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2829301

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
40km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,834 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Lizarda 2,999 inhabitants where it started
    3,138 ha reached on 28 Sept
    0.5 %

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)
27 Sept 35.8 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Sept 36.5 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Sept 36.7 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Sept 37.1 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Oct after 37.2 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Oct after 37.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Oct after 36.2 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Oct after 36.1 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
5 Oct after 37.8 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Oct after 36.8 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Oct after 34.8 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
8 Oct after 36.5 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Oct after 34.7 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Oct after 36.8 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Oct after 36.2 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Sept 2022
After · 7 Oct 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 2 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak65 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1093 µg/m³
Optical depth0.60
252627282930123
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 · 73Every 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 Lizarda fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2022 and 30 September 2022: 4 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 3,121 hectares (31.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lizarda (3,138 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.