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Parnaguá fire, September 2023 Parnaguá

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2023, 16:19 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2023 in Parnaguá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,733 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 107th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 805 with a page). Number 47 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Parnaguá · 2018Parnaguá · 2021Parnaguá · 2021Curimatá · 2022

Burnt area
10,733ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
7 Sept 2023 – 24 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Sept
2023
Heat detections
535
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
385MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept24 Sept
24 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

7 Sept 2023 · 2 MW · 1 9 Sept 2023 · 87 MW · 14 10 Sept 2023 · 128 MW · 12 11 Sept 2023 · 7 MW · 3 13 Sept 2023 · 27 MW · 1 14 Sept 2023 · 790 MW · 67 15 Sept 2023 · 1,142 MW · 91 16 Sept 2023 · 1,252 MW · 91 17 Sept 2023 · 746 MW · 79 18 Sept 2023 · 1,518 MW · 100 19 Sept 2023 · 192 MW · 33 20 Sept 2023 · 59 MW · 12 21 Sept 2023 · 41 MW · 7 22 Sept 2023 · 54 MW · 8 23 Sept 2023 · 98 MW · 15 24 Sept 2023 · 14 MW · 1
7 Sept 11 Sept 15 Sept 18 Sept 21 Sept 24 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
50km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,826 ha in 2018, 6,561 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,219 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.8% of the area of London (107 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Parnaguá 10,103 inhabitants where it started
    10,799 ha reached on 7 Sept
    3.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.48 ha
Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.48 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
7 Sept 35.7 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Sept 35.8 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Sept 36.0 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Sept 36.1 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Sept 36.4 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Sept 36.7 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Sept 37.9 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Sept 37.9 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Sept 40.0 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Sept 38.7 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Sept 37.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Sept 37.1 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Sept 36.3 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Sept 37.1 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Sept 37.0 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Sept 37.4 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Sept 38.7 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Sept 38.6 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Sept after 38.9 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Sept after 38.5 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Sept after 34.5 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Sept after 34.7 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
29 Sept after 40.3 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Sept after 38.8 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Oct after 39.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Oct after 39.1 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Oct after 39.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Oct after 38.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2023
After · 1 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 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1047 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
11121314151617181920212223242526
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 · 535Every 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 Parnaguá fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 September 2023 to 24 September 2023 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 September 2023 to 23 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,733 hectares (107.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Parnaguá (10,799 ha, 3.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 23 September 2023 → 24 September 2023.
  2. Start date: 13 September 2023 → 7 September 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 September 2023 to 23 September 2023. 535 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.