How long did the Prainha fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 November 2023 and 23 November 2023: 15 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 6,211 hectares (62.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Santarém (3,737 ha, 0.2 %); Prainha (2,269 ha, 0.2 %); Uruará (248 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2023-11-09 → 2023-11-23

Prainha fire, November 2023 Santarém, Prainha, Uruará

Out · last detection 23 Nov 2023, 04:57 UTC

The fire started on 9 November 2023 in Prainha, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,211 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 394th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1096 with a page). Number 119 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area: 6,211ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 9 Nov 2023 – 23 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 9 Nov; 2023
Heat detections: 865; in a single hotspot: 143 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 4.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Nov 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Nov23 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181920212223

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

42km/h · peak gust

34%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 17.9 mm on 27 Nov.

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 237 ha in 2017, 1,516 ha in 2022.

237 ha Santarém fire, November 2017 3,596 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Santarém 331,942 inhabitants

3,737 ha reached on 3 Nov

0.2 %
Prainha 35,577 inhabitants where it started

2,269 ha reached on 2 Nov

0.2 %
Uruará 43,558 inhabitants

248 ha reached on 2 Nov

0.0 %

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 Nov	37.0 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
3 Nov	36.7 °C	43 %	36 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 21
4 Nov	35.6 °C	42 %	37 km/h	2.2 mm	Moderate 12
5 Nov	34.5 °C	47 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 17
6 Nov	34.8 °C	50 %	34 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 12
7 Nov	33.0 °C	58 %	33 km/h	8.4 mm	Very low 2
8 Nov	33.9 °C	51 %	29 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 8
9 Nov	35.7 °C	42 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
10 Nov	34.7 °C	48 %	37 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 16
11 Nov	34.1 °C	50 %	40 km/h	3.0 mm	Low 6
12 Nov	35.5 °C	44 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
13 Nov	35.8 °C	39 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
14 Nov	36.9 °C	35 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
15 Nov	36.5 °C	36 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
16 Nov	35.5 °C	46 %	27 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 19
17 Nov	35.4 °C	44 %	35 km/h	0.4 mm	High 22
18 Nov	36.5 °C	37 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
19 Nov	34.9 °C	45 %	34 km/h	1.8 mm	Moderate 12
20 Nov	35.5 °C	44 %	35 km/h	5.8 mm	Low 6
21 Nov	34.8 °C	46 %	35 km/h	0.8 mm	Low 10
22 Nov	35.1 °C	46 %	35 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 15
23 Nov	33.4 °C	47 %	42 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 17
24 Nov after	35.9 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
25 Nov after	35.1 °C	45 %	36 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 13
26 Nov after	34.4 °C	45 %	26 km/h	4.2 mm	Very low 3
27 Nov after	29.7 °C	68 %	28 km/h	17.9 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Nov 2023

After · 30 Nov 2023

Before After

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 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 76 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak76 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM10108 µg/m³

Optical depth1.00

WHO 15

7891011121314151617181920212223242526

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 · 865Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Prainha fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 November 2023 and 23 November 2023: 15 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 6,211 hectares (62.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Santarém (3,737 ha, 0.2 %); Prainha (2,269 ha, 0.2 %); Uruará (248 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned