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Mateiros fire, September 2022 Mateiros

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2022, 03:44 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2022 in Mateiros, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,016 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 595th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 292 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
5,016ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
27 Sept 2022 – 7 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Sept
2022
Heat detections
138
in a single hotspot: 225 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept7 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

272829301234567

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
49km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 72 ha in 2016, 272 ha in 2017, 1,175 ha in 2019, 1,567 ha in 2020, 51 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,876 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mateiros 2,748 inhabitants where it started
    5,049 ha reached on 27 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 33.8 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Sept 34.4 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Sept 35.7 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Sept 35.8 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Oct 35.6 °C 19 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Oct 35.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Oct 34.8 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Oct 34.5 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Oct 36.0 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Oct 35.3 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Oct 33.5 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Oct after 34.7 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Oct after 33.7 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Oct after 35.3 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Oct after 34.7 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Oct after 34.6 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Oct after 34.5 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Oct after 35.8 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Oct after 34.3 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Oct after 33.0 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Oct after 33.7 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Oct after 35.3 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Sept 2022
After · 14 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 4 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1053 µg/m³
Optical depth0.75
25262728293012345678910
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 · 138Every 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 Mateiros fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2022 and 7 October 2022: 11 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 5,016 hectares (50.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mateiros (5,049 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very 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.