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Oiapoque fire, September 2023 Oiapoque

Out · last detection 18 Oct 2023, 04:30 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2023 in Oiapoque, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,002 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Amapá since 2016 (of 41 with a page). Number 61 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
9,002ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
27 Sept 2023 – 20 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Sept
2023
Heat detections
379
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept20 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

27282930123456789101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
45km/h · peak gust
42%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 22 Oct.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,001 ha in 2016, 1,341 ha in 2018, 1,060 ha in 2019, 2,556 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,676 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Oiapoque 27,482 inhabitants where it started
    9,064 ha reached on 21 Sept
    0.4 %

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)
21 Sept 32.8 °C 57 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 16
22 Sept 32.6 °C 58 % 42 km/h 3.7 mm Low 5
23 Sept 34.0 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
24 Sept 34.3 °C 51 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 17
25 Sept 33.7 °C 53 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
26 Sept 33.6 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
27 Sept 34.0 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Sept 32.8 °C 57 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
29 Sept 33.1 °C 51 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 21
30 Sept 33.8 °C 52 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
1 Oct 32.9 °C 53 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
2 Oct 33.0 °C 57 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 21
3 Oct 32.9 °C 62 % 45 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 12
4 Oct 33.4 °C 56 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 17
5 Oct 33.6 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
6 Oct 33.4 °C 53 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
7 Oct 33.4 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Oct 33.7 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Oct 32.9 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 Oct 32.8 °C 53 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Oct 33.3 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Oct 33.5 °C 49 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
13 Oct 34.2 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
14 Oct 33.6 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Oct 34.4 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Oct 33.0 °C 60 % 34 km/h 2.5 mm Low 7
17 Oct 34.6 °C 48 % 34 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
18 Oct 32.0 °C 62 % 37 km/h 10.2 mm Very low 3
19 Oct 32.2 °C 65 % 38 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 3
20 Oct 33.1 °C 55 % 39 km/h 1.3 mm Low 6
21 Oct after 34.6 °C 50 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 12
22 Oct after 33.6 °C 62 % 38 km/h 2.1 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Sept 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 21 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1035 µg/m³
Optical depth0.46
2526272829301234567891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 379Every 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 Oiapoque fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2023 and 20 October 2023: 24 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 9,002 hectares (90.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Oiapoque (9,064 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.