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Portel fire, 17 September 2023 Portel

Out · last detection 20 Oct 2023, 16:33 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2023 in Portel, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,865 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 754th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1112 with a page). Number 277 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Portel · 2026Portel · 2023Portel · 2019Portel · 2026

Burnt area
3,865ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
17 Sept 2023 – 20 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Sept
2023
Heat detections
478
in a single hotspot: 140 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
126MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept20 Oct
20 Oct 2023

How it evolved, day by day

17 Sept 2023 · 76 MW · 8 18 Sept 2023 · 324 MW · 13 19 Sept 2023 · 17 MW · 3 20 Sept 2023 · 5 MW · 4 22 Sept 2023 · 17 MW · 4 23 Sept 2023 · 80 MW · 3 24 Sept 2023 · 34 MW · 4 25 Sept 2023 · 621 MW · 27 26 Sept 2023 · 216 MW · 35 27 Sept 2023 · 393 MW · 63 28 Sept 2023 · 604 MW · 46 29 Sept 2023 · 295 MW · 28 30 Sept 2023 · 92 MW · 38 1 Oct 2023 · 386 MW · 54 2 Oct 2023 · 109 MW · 42 3 Oct 2023 · 4 MW · 1 5 Oct 2023 · 4 MW · 2 7 Oct 2023 · 4 MW · 2 8 Oct 2023 · 3 MW · 1 9 Oct 2023 · 36 MW · 2 10 Oct 2023 · 101 MW · 23 11 Oct 2023 · 33 MW · 14 12 Oct 2023 · 27 MW · 16 13 Oct 2023 · 124 MW · 10 14 Oct 2023 · 157 MW · 14 15 Oct 2023 · 7 MW · 2 16 Oct 2023 · 6 MW · 4 17 Oct 2023 · 4 MW · 4 18 Oct 2023 · 15 MW · 2 19 Oct 2023 · 57 MW · 6 20 Oct 2023 · 42 MW · 3
17 Sept 23 Sept 25 Sept 28 Sept 3 Oct 10 Oct 15 Oct 20 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
43km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 23 Oct.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 431 ha in 2018, 1,158 ha in 2019, 1,882 ha in 2020, 2,378 ha in 2021, 3,410 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,732 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.4% of the area of London (39 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
    3,893 ha reached on 17 Sept
    0.2 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
17 Sept 34.2 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Sept 35.5 °C 45 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Sept 35.9 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
20 Sept 36.2 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.9 mm High 22
21 Sept 34.5 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
22 Sept 31.5 °C 64 % 30 km/h 5.2 mm Very low 4
23 Sept 35.6 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
24 Sept 35.7 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
25 Sept 36.1 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
26 Sept 36.5 °C 45 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 Sept 35.7 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
28 Sept 35.2 °C 47 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Sept 35.9 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Sept 37.0 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Oct 36.7 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
2 Oct 36.1 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
3 Oct 36.2 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Oct 35.5 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Oct 36.1 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Oct 34.6 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Oct 35.3 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
8 Oct 35.5 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
9 Oct 35.5 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Oct 35.1 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Oct 34.1 °C 53 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
12 Oct 35.5 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
13 Oct 36.6 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
14 Oct 36.9 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
15 Oct 35.4 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
16 Oct 35.3 °C 46 % 25 km/h 5.3 mm Low 7
17 Oct 35.8 °C 44 % 27 km/h 2.9 mm Low 10
18 Oct 35.4 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18
19 Oct 36.3 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
20 Oct 36.9 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
21 Oct after 34.8 °C 51 % 25 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 20
22 Oct after 34.5 °C 53 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 19
23 Oct after 34.6 °C 48 % 35 km/h 2.5 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2023
After · 27 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 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 103 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak103 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM10147 µg/m³
Optical depth1.48
2223242526272829301234567891011121314151617
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 · 478Every 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 17 September 2023 to 20 October 2023 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 September 2023 to 14 October 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,865 hectares (38.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Portel (3,893 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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: 14 October 2023 → 20 October 2023.
  2. Start date: 24 September 2023 → 17 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 24 September 2023 to 14 October 2023. 478 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.