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Portel fire, 12 October 2019 Portel

Out · last detection 13 Nov 2019, 17:17 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2019 in Portel, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,078 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 186th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1098 with a page). Number 121 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Portel · 2026Portel · 2020Portel · 2023Pacajá · 2020

Burnt area
12,078ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
12 Oct 2019 – 12 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Oct
2019
Heat detections
1,328
in a single hotspot: 347 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
446MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct12 Nov
13 Nov 2019

How it evolved, day by day

13 Oct 2019 · 11 MW · 4 15 Oct 2019 · 217 MW · 3 16 Oct 2019 · 35 MW · 13 17 Oct 2019 · 97 MW · 13 18 Oct 2019 · 370 MW · 65 19 Oct 2019 · 75 MW · 6 20 Oct 2019 · 456 MW · 58 21 Oct 2019 · 67 MW · 8 22 Oct 2019 · 18 MW · 13 23 Oct 2019 · 148 MW · 44 24 Oct 2019 · 3,396 MW · 152 25 Oct 2019 · 3,101 MW · 177 26 Oct 2019 · 1,334 MW · 192 27 Oct 2019 · 366 MW · 110 28 Oct 2019 · 403 MW · 77 29 Oct 2019 · 290 MW · 88 30 Oct 2019 · 1,049 MW · 67 31 Oct 2019 · 315 MW · 22 1 Nov 2019 · 996 MW · 96 2 Nov 2019 · 114 MW · 30 3 Nov 2019 · 53 MW · 6 4 Nov 2019 · 155 MW · 7 5 Nov 2019 · 13 MW · 4 6 Nov 2019 · 66 MW · 25 7 Nov 2019 · 15 MW · 15 8 Nov 2019 · 104 MW · 21 9 Nov 2019 · 84 MW · 4 11 Nov 2019 · 3 MW · 2 12 Nov 2019 · 5 MW · 4 13 Nov 2019 · 24 MW · 2
13 Oct 19 Oct 24 Oct 29 Oct 3 Nov 8 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 16 Nov.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,865 ha in 2016, 6,031 ha in 2017, 2,661 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,854 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.6% of the area of London (121 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. Portel 62,503 inhabitants where it started
    12,167 ha reached on 13 Oct
    0.5 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.21 ha
Residents≈ 70

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.21 hectares of built-up land and about 70 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
12 Oct 33.8 °C 48 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
13 Oct 32.4 °C 57 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 18
14 Oct 34.7 °C 52 % 30 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 13
15 Oct 35.0 °C 47 % 35 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 15
16 Oct 35.1 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
17 Oct 34.9 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 15
18 Oct 33.8 °C 53 % 32 km/h 1.8 mm Low 10
19 Oct 34.6 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
20 Oct 35.0 °C 48 % 34 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 11
21 Oct 36.3 °C 47 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
22 Oct 33.2 °C 52 % 23 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 5
23 Oct 33.7 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 13
24 Oct 36.4 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 19
25 Oct 35.2 °C 52 % 28 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 13
26 Oct 33.9 °C 54 % 27 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 5
27 Oct 35.1 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
28 Oct 36.0 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
29 Oct 35.1 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 18
30 Oct 35.0 °C 48 % 27 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 15
31 Oct 34.9 °C 52 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 16
1 Nov 35.9 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Nov 36.5 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
3 Nov 34.9 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Nov 34.2 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
5 Nov 36.1 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
6 Nov 34.5 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18
7 Nov 35.4 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18
8 Nov 33.8 °C 52 % 24 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 14
9 Nov 31.8 °C 56 % 29 km/h 2.8 mm Low 6
10 Nov 34.1 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 16
11 Nov 35.2 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 19
12 Nov 34.9 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
13 Nov after 34.0 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
14 Nov after 34.8 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
15 Nov after 34.9 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 20
16 Nov after 34.9 °C 47 % 30 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 2019
After · 19 Nov 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 1,328Every 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 Portel fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 October 2019 to 12 November 2019 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 October 2019 to 6 November 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,078 hectares (120.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Portel (12,167 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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 · 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: 6 November 2019 → 12 November 2019.
  2. Start date: 18 October 2019 → 12 October 2019.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 October 2019 to 6 November 2019. 1,328 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 2020, 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.