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Marabá fire, July 2019 Marabá, Eldorado do Carajás

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2019, 16:38 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2019 in Marabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,160 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1028th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1096 with a page). Number 897 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
3,160ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
19 Jul 2019 – 26 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
19 Jul
2019
Heat detections
94
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul26 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 703 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Marabá 266,533 inhabitants where it started
    3,046 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.2 %
  2. Eldorado do Carajás 28,192 inhabitants
    136 ha reached on 22 Jul
    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)
14 Jul 33.2 °C 47 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Jul 34.0 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Jul 34.0 °C 46 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
17 Jul 33.1 °C 54 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jul 32.8 °C 55 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
19 Jul 33.2 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Jul 33.0 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Jul 32.1 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Jul 33.9 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Jul 34.2 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Jul 33.3 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Jul 34.1 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Jul 34.7 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jul after 33.9 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jul after 33.8 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jul after 35.3 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Jul after 35.9 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul after 35.3 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug after 35.8 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Aug after 34.4 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Aug after 34.8 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Aug after 34.2 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Aug after 33.0 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Aug after 34.1 °C 41 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Aug after 33.4 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Aug after 34.1 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Aug after 35.1 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Aug after 34.9 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Aug after 34.8 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Aug after 35.3 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2019
After · 2 Aug 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 94Every 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 Marabá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 July 2019 and 26 July 2019: 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 3,160 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Marabá (3,046 ha, 0.2 %); Eldorado do Carajás (136 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

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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.