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Manaquiri fire, August 2023 Manaquiri

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2023, 17:55 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2023 in Manaquiri, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,998 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 118th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 127 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Manaquiri · 2026

Burnt area
5,998ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
20 Aug 2023 – 19 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Aug
2023
Heat detections
426
in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
171MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug19 Sept
19 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 2023 · 3 MW · 1 21 Aug 2023 · 5 MW · 1 23 Aug 2023 · 62 MW · 5 24 Aug 2023 · 106 MW · 11 25 Aug 2023 · 114 MW · 14 26 Aug 2023 · 435 MW · 32 27 Aug 2023 · 16 MW · 10 28 Aug 2023 · 13 MW · 8 29 Aug 2023 · 61 MW · 18 30 Aug 2023 · 109 MW · 39 31 Aug 2023 · 679 MW · 34 1 Sept 2023 · 168 MW · 33 2 Sept 2023 · 54 MW · 15 3 Sept 2023 · 430 MW · 34 4 Sept 2023 · 543 MW · 34 5 Sept 2023 · 670 MW · 38 7 Sept 2023 · 35 MW · 3 8 Sept 2023 · 254 MW · 13 9 Sept 2023 · 148 MW · 15 10 Sept 2023 · 192 MW · 18 12 Sept 2023 · 30 MW · 5 13 Sept 2023 · 1 MW · 1 14 Sept 2023 · 119 MW · 13 15 Sept 2023 · 64 MW · 14 18 Sept 2023 · 45 MW · 6 19 Sept 2023 · 98 MW · 11
20 Aug 25 Aug 29 Aug 31 Aug 2 Sept 7 Sept 12 Sept 18 Sept

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
36km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 968 ha in 2017, 2,732 ha in 2018, 1,102 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,327 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 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. Manaquiri 17,107 inhabitants where it started
    6,037 ha reached on 20 Aug
    1.5 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
20 Aug 35.6 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
21 Aug 35.2 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
22 Aug 35.6 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
23 Aug 35.1 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
24 Aug 34.9 °C 46 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
25 Aug 35.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 16
26 Aug 35.7 °C 44 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
27 Aug 35.3 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
28 Aug 35.6 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
29 Aug 35.9 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Aug 34.7 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
31 Aug 35.0 °C 46 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 19
1 Sept 36.5 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
2 Sept 36.3 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Sept 36.2 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
4 Sept 36.4 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Sept 36.7 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Sept 36.7 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.5 mm High 23
7 Sept 32.5 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
8 Sept 34.6 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Sept 36.3 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Sept 37.1 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
11 Sept 32.3 °C 60 % 27 km/h 7.5 mm Very low 2
12 Sept 34.5 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm Low 7
13 Sept 35.6 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 17
14 Sept 36.2 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Sept 35.8 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Sept 29.8 °C 63 % 29 km/h 2.1 mm Low 6
17 Sept 32.6 °C 57 % 36 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 3
18 Sept 35.5 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Sept 36.2 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Sept after 31.2 °C 55 % 25 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 13
21 Sept after 33.3 °C 49 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
22 Sept after 34.2 °C 51 % 28 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Aug 2023
After · 26 Sept 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 30 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 216 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 116: 7.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak216 µg/m³
Days over the guideline25 days
PM10310 µg/m³
Optical depth1.32
192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617
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 · 426Every 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 Manaquiri fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 August 2023 to 19 September 2023 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 August 2023 to 14 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,998 hectares (60.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manaquiri (6,037 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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 · 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. Last day with fire: 14 September 2023 → 19 September 2023.
  2. Start date: 21 August 2023 → 20 August 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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 21 August 2023 to 14 September 2023. 426 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.