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Marcelândia fire, 3 August 2022 Marcelândia

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2022, 17:34 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2022 in Marcelândia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 46 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,002 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 139th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 20 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Marcelândia · 2017Marcelândia · 2019Marcelândia · 2020Marcelândia · 2019

Burnt area
25,002ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
46days
3 Aug 2022 – 17 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Aug
2022
Heat detections
2,050
in a single hotspot: 457 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.1GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug17 Sept
17 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

3 Aug 2022 · 57 MW · 2 4 Aug 2022 · 3,950 MW · 141 5 Aug 2022 · 7,768 MW · 98 6 Aug 2022 · 2,305 MW · 134 7 Aug 2022 · 277 MW · 22 8 Aug 2022 · 323 MW · 46 9 Aug 2022 · 856 MW · 36 10 Aug 2022 · 85 MW · 39 11 Aug 2022 · 12 MW · 4 12 Aug 2022 · 5 MW · 2 13 Aug 2022 · 5 MW · 1 14 Aug 2022 · 319 MW · 15 15 Aug 2022 · 125 MW · 18 16 Aug 2022 · 331 MW · 73 17 Aug 2022 · 7,280 MW · 138 18 Aug 2022 · 3,143 MW · 149 19 Aug 2022 · 1,449 MW · 132 20 Aug 2022 · 2,310 MW · 112 21 Aug 2022 · 2,057 MW · 102 22 Aug 2022 · 6,973 MW · 149 23 Aug 2022 · 1,653 MW · 44 24 Aug 2022 · 1,216 MW · 39 25 Aug 2022 · 184 MW · 51 26 Aug 2022 · 258 MW · 40 27 Aug 2022 · 316 MW · 46 28 Aug 2022 · 1,279 MW · 90 29 Aug 2022 · 578 MW · 19 30 Aug 2022 · 22 MW · 11 31 Aug 2022 · 32 MW · 9 1 Sept 2022 · 74 MW · 20 2 Sept 2022 · 84 MW · 27 3 Sept 2022 · 142 MW · 17 4 Sept 2022 · 13 MW · 2 5 Sept 2022 · 51 MW · 11 6 Sept 2022 · 202 MW · 29 7 Sept 2022 · 112 MW · 23 8 Sept 2022 · 110 MW · 27 9 Sept 2022 · 152 MW · 19 10 Sept 2022 · 31 MW · 17 11 Sept 2022 · 115 MW · 25 12 Sept 2022 · 118 MW · 40 13 Sept 2022 · 19 MW · 7 16 Sept 2022 · 132 MW · 13 17 Sept 2022 · 22 MW · 11
5 Aug 12 Aug 21 Aug 30 Aug 8 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

38°high
44km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,333 ha in 2017, 21,137 ha in 2019, 8,713 ha in 2020, 4,209 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,593 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 16% of the area of London (250 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. Marcelândia 11,396 inhabitants where it started
    25,153 ha reached on 3 Aug
    2.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.77 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.77 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
3 Aug 36.4 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Aug 36.1 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Aug 36.0 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Aug 35.7 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Aug 35.7 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Aug 34.2 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm High 31
9 Aug 36.8 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Aug 33.0 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Aug 33.5 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug 35.4 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug 37.2 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug 34.8 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 43
15 Aug 35.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug 35.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug 36.3 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Aug 36.6 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Aug 34.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug 33.9 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug 35.9 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Aug 34.9 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Aug 34.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Aug 36.9 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 36.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Aug 37.1 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug 37.4 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug 37.2 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug 37.4 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Aug 37.9 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Aug 36.6 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Sept 36.8 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Sept 36.4 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Sept 36.9 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Sept 37.7 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Sept 38.1 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Sept 37.9 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Sept 36.8 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Sept 36.2 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Sept 37.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Sept 38.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept 38.5 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2022
After · 24 Sept 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 20 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 419 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 221: 15 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak419 µg/m³
Days over the guideline42 days
PM10600 µg/m³
Optical depth2.23
4 Aug14 Aug24 Aug3 Sept13 Sept
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 · 2,050Every 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 Marcelândia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2022 and 17 September 2022: 46 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 25,002 hectares (250.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Marcelândia (25,153 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2,050 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 2020, 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.