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Paranatinga fire, May 2022 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 23 May 2022, 04:52 UTC

The fire started on 21 May 2022 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,430 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1698th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 538 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
3,430ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
21 May 2022 – 23 May 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 May
2022
Heat detections
211
in a single hotspot: 508 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
11.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 May 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 May23 May

How it evolved, day by day

212223

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
37km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    3,441 ha reached on 21 May
    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)
21 May 29.8 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 May 31.1 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 May 32.2 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 May after 33.6 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 May after 32.6 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 May after 33.2 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 May after 32.7 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 May after 32.3 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 May after 34.0 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 May after 34.7 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 May after 34.3 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Jun after 34.7 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Jun after 32.8 °C 43 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Jun after 33.4 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Jun after 33.7 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Jun after 33.6 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Jun after 32.9 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Jun after 33.0 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Jun after 32.4 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Jun after 32.7 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 May 2022
After · 30 May 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.

Detections table · 211Every 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 Paranatinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 May 2022 and 23 May 2022: 3 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 3,430 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (3,441 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % 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.