Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Poconé fire, October 2023 Poconé

Out · last detection 24 Oct 2023, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 17 October 2023 in Poconé, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,705 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1560th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 306 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
3,705ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
17 Oct 2023 – 24 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Oct
2023
Heat detections
170
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Oct24 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
54km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 3 Nov.

This area had burned before

63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,329 ha in 2020, 88 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Poconé 31,217 inhabitants where it started
    3,729 ha reached on 17 Oct
    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)
17 Oct 39.9 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Oct 40.4 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Oct 40.6 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
20 Oct 40.3 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
21 Oct 38.9 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Oct 40.4 °C 32 % 32 km/h 1.6 mm High 30
23 Oct 39.6 °C 37 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm High 29
24 Oct 39.1 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Oct after 32.6 °C 55 % 27 km/h 0.5 mm High 25
26 Oct after 37.1 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
27 Oct after 36.6 °C 41 % 46 km/h 2.1 mm High 23
28 Oct after 34.4 °C 48 % 54 km/h 4.2 mm Low 11
29 Oct after 38.3 °C 34 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
30 Oct after 36.9 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
31 Oct after 34.8 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Nov after 37.4 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
2 Nov after 38.1 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Nov after 35.7 °C 41 % 48 km/h 1.1 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Oct 2023
After · 31 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 19 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 41 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak41 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1058 µg/m³
Optical depth1.30
15161718192021222324252627
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 · 170Every 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 17 October 2023 and 24 October 2023: 8 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 3,705 hectares (37.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poconé (3,729 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 54 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.