Paranatinga fire, 30 August 2023 Paranatinga
The fire started on 30 August 2023 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,787 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 763th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 101 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.
- Burnt area
- 6,787ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 30 Aug 2023 – 5 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 30 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 291
- in a single hotspot: 127 MW
- Danger at start
- 3
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.5GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,648 ha in 2017, 367 ha in 2018, 7,061 ha in 2019, 1,818 ha in 2020, 8,296 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,808 ha that had burned before.
- 6,419 ha Paranatinga fire, August 2017 25,261 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,356 ha Paranatinga fire, August 2019 20,508 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,427 ha Paranatinga fire, August 2021 9,108 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,709 ha Paranatinga fire, July 2021 6,671 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
6,824 ha reached on 30 Aug0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Aug | 32.2 °C | 49 % | 24 km/h | 12.9 mm | Very low 3 |
| 31 Aug | 34.0 °C | 47 % | 19 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 10 |
| 1 Sept | 34.4 °C | 42 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 2 Sept | 34.4 °C | 37 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 3 Sept | 34.0 °C | 40 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 4 Sept | 36.9 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Sept | 37.6 °C | 24 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Sept after | 36.6 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 35 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Sept after | 35.1 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Sept after | 37.2 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Sept after | 37.4 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 12 Sept after | 37.0 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Sept after | 38.0 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Sept after | 32.7 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Sept after | 34.9 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 31 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 86 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 291Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Paranatinga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2023 and 5 September 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 6,787 hectares (67.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Paranatinga (6,824 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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
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.