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Óbidos fire, October 2023 Óbidos

Out · last detection 20 Oct 2023, 16:35 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2023 in Óbidos, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,635 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 573th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1095 with a page). Number 199 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
4,635ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
13 Oct 2023 – 20 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Oct
2023
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
722MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct20 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

13141516171920

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
37km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 21 Oct.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,712 ha in 2017, 153 ha in 2019, 292 ha in 2021, 101 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,978 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Óbidos 52,229 inhabitants where it started
    4,669 ha reached on 13 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
13 Oct 36.0 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Oct 35.6 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Oct 34.2 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Oct 33.0 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Oct 33.5 °C 45 % 23 km/h 15.7 mm Very low 3
18 Oct 31.4 °C 55 % 20 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 2
19 Oct 30.3 °C 60 % 28 km/h 13.8 mm Very low 0
20 Oct 33.1 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 5
21 Oct after 33.5 °C 46 % 26 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Oct 2023
After · 27 Oct 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 15 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1054 µg/m³
Optical depth0.74
11121314151617181920212223
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 · 121Every 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 Óbidos fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 October 2023 and 20 October 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 4,635 hectares (46.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Óbidos (4,669 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.

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.