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Poconé fire, September 2023 Poconé

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2023, 17:14 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2023 in Poconé, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,328 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1761th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 368 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
3,328ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
2 Sept 2023 – 5 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Sept
2023
Heat detections
177
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept5 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2345

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
49km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.1 mm on 13 Sept.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 790 ha in 2018, 2,030 ha in 2019, 1,479 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,237 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Poconé 31,217 inhabitants where it started
    3,333 ha reached on 2 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
2 Sept 37.0 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
3 Sept 37.1 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
4 Sept 37.8 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Sept 35.2 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
6 Sept after 35.1 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm High 27
7 Sept after 35.3 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Sept after 36.3 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 39
9 Sept after 34.6 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.7 mm High 22
10 Sept after 37.2 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Sept after 38.8 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Sept after 38.2 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 35.0 °C 44 % 30 km/h 11.1 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2023
After · 12 Sept 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 4 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1033 µg/m³
Optical depth0.50
3112345678
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 · 177Every 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 Poconé fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 September 2023 and 5 September 2023: 4 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 3,328 hectares (33.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poconé (3,333 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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.