Lizarda fire, 9 September 2023 Lizarda
The fire started on 9 September 2023 in Lizarda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,898 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 474th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 131 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.
- Burnt area
- 5,898ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 9 Sept 2023 – 16 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 128
- in a single hotspot: 118 MW
- Danger at start
- 61
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.6GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 26 Sept.
This area had burned before
59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,289 ha in 2016, 862 ha in 2017, 1,402 ha in 2020, 229 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,453 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
5,935 ha reached on 9 Sept1.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Sept | 37.1 °C | 20 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 10 Sept | 37.6 °C | 18 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 11 Sept | 37.9 °C | 21 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 12 Sept | 38.3 °C | 20 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 13 Sept | 39.3 °C | 12 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 14 Sept | 39.0 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 15 Sept | 39.5 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Sept | 39.2 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 17 Sept after | 38.4 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 18 Sept after | 38.2 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 19 Sept after | 38.7 °C | 18 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 20 Sept after | 39.5 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 21 Sept after | 38.1 °C | 15 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 22 Sept after | 38.9 °C | 17 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 23 Sept after | 39.1 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Sept after | 39.0 °C | 23 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Sept after | 38.4 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 26 Sept after | 38.1 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 2.3 mm | High 27 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 16 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 128Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lizarda fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2023 and 16 September 2023: 8 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 5,898 hectares (59.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lizarda (5,935 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
- 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
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.