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Aripuanã fire, 5 August 2020 Aripuanã

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2020, 17:09 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2020 in Aripuanã, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,021 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1071th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 507 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
5,021ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
5 Aug 2020 – 22 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Aug
2020
Heat detections
587
in a single hotspot: 319 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
11.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug22 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

56789101112131415161718192022

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
41km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 203 ha in 2016, 459 ha in 2017, 1,385 ha in 2018, 4,093 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,256 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Aripuanã 25,766 inhabitants where it started
    5,050 ha reached on 5 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
5 Aug 35.0 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug 34.3 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Aug 33.9 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Aug 34.7 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Aug 34.6 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Aug 35.5 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 35.6 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Aug 37.3 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Aug 36.0 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Aug 35.9 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug 36.7 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Aug 36.9 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Aug 39.1 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Aug 37.9 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug 36.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug 33.9 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Aug 24.5 °C 47 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Aug 28.8 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Aug after 33.4 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Aug after 34.6 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Aug after 34.0 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Aug after 35.3 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Aug after 35.6 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Aug after 35.1 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug after 34.8 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Aug after 35.3 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Aug after 35.1 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Sept after 37.2 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept after 36.6 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Sept after 37.4 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Sept after 36.8 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept after 37.6 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2020
After · 29 Aug 2020

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 · 587Every 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 Aripuanã fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2020 and 22 August 2020: 18 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 5,021 hectares (50.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aripuanã (5,050 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.