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Óbidos fire, November 2023 Óbidos

Out · last detection 17 Nov 2023, 17:50 UTC

The fire started on 11 November 2023 in Óbidos, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,428 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 891th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1096 with a page). Number 344 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
3,428ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
11 Nov 2023 – 17 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Nov
2023
Heat detections
84
in a single hotspot: 98 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
439MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Nov 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Nov17 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617

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
42km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 21 Nov.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 287 ha in 2016, 95 ha in 2017, 1,270 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,408 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Óbidos 52,229 inhabitants where it started
    3,453 ha reached on 11 Nov
    0.1 %

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)
11 Nov 35.1 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
12 Nov 35.8 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Nov 36.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Nov 35.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Nov 35.4 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
16 Nov 34.4 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
17 Nov 35.8 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
18 Nov after 35.3 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Nov after 33.9 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 21
20 Nov after 34.6 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
21 Nov after 35.4 °C 41 % 30 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Nov 2023
After · 24 Nov 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 19 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1026 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
91011121314151617181920
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 · 84Every 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 11 November 2023 and 17 November 2023: 7 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 3,428 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Óbidos (3,453 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.