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Poconé fire, 2 November 2023 Poconé

Out · last detection 16 Nov 2023, 18:04 UTC

The fire started on 2 November 2023 in Poconé, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,720 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 434th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 48 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
10,720ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
2 Nov 2023 – 15 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Nov
2023
Heat detections
786
in a single hotspot: 519 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
9.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Nov 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Nov15 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2345678111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
60km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 15.9 mm on 20 Nov.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 14,291 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,464 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Poconé 31,217 inhabitants where it started
    10,785 ha reached on 27 Oct
    0.6 %

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)
27 Oct 36.6 °C 41 % 46 km/h 2.1 mm High 23
28 Oct 34.4 °C 48 % 54 km/h 4.2 mm Low 11
29 Oct 38.3 °C 34 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
30 Oct 36.9 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
31 Oct 34.8 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Nov 37.4 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
2 Nov 38.1 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Nov 35.7 °C 41 % 48 km/h 1.1 mm High 28
4 Nov 31.2 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Nov 35.7 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Nov 39.0 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Nov 40.5 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Nov 39.8 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Nov 39.0 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Nov 39.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Nov 39.6 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Nov 40.0 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Nov 40.1 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Nov 39.5 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
15 Nov 41.5 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Nov after 40.7 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Nov after 40.1 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Nov after 40.2 °C 29 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Nov after 38.9 °C 33 % 39 km/h 4.5 mm Moderate 18
20 Nov after 31.1 °C 65 % 26 km/h 15.9 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Oct 2023
After · 22 Nov 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 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 224 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 78: 5.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak224 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10319 µg/m³
Optical depth3.02
31123456789101112131415161718
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 · 786Every 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 November 2023 and 15 November 2023: 14 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 10,720 hectares (107.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poconé (10,785 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.