Skip to content
worldfires
PE · Peru · →

Ucayali fire, October 2022 Ucayali, Coronel Portillo

Out · last detection 5 Nov 2022, 18:58 UTC

The fire started on 31 October 2022 in Ucayali, Peru, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,372 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Loreto since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 26 in Peru in 2022, of 61.

Burnt area
1,372ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
31 Oct 2022 – 5 Nov 2022
Municipalities hit
2
provinces
Started on
31 Oct
2022
Heat detections
43
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
396MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Nov 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Oct5 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

311345

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
55km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.5 mm on 10 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Ucayali 7,742 inhabitants where it started
    1,275 ha reached on 31 Oct
    0.0 %
  2. Coronel Portillo 135,161 inhabitants
    107 ha
    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)
31 Oct 34.0 °C 62 % 30 km/h 7.4 mm Very low 0
1 Nov 26.9 °C 79 % 55 km/h 31.4 mm Very low 0
2 Nov 27.7 °C 44 % 35 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 0
3 Nov 31.0 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
4 Nov 33.5 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
5 Nov 34.6 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
6 Nov after 34.5 °C 43 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
7 Nov after 36.3 °C 38 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
8 Nov after 36.6 °C 41 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
9 Nov after 36.1 °C 46 % 18 km/h 0.5 mm Low 8
10 Nov after 28.6 °C 72 % 31 km/h 7.5 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Oct 2022
After · 12 Nov 2022

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 8 November 2022 the air beside the fire reached 99 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak99 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10142 µg/m³
Optical depth0.50
29303112345678
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 · 43Every 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 Peru ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ucayali fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 October 2022 and 5 November 2022: 6 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 1,372 hectares (13.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ucayali (1,275 ha, 0.0 %); Coronel Portillo (107 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class Low.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Peru (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: 116 · 105

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 116 · 105.

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.