Barra do Corda fire, August 2019 Barra do Corda
The fire started on 5 August 2019 in Barra do Corda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,272 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 54th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 165 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 10,272ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 29days
- 5 Aug 2019 – 2 Sept 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 5 Aug
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 491
- in a single hotspot: 393 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 229MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,407 ha in 2016, 6,673 ha in 2017, 1,251 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,437 ha that had burned before.
- 5,256 ha Barra do Corda fire, September 2017 15,420 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,416 ha Jenipapo dos Vieiras fire, August 2017 35,272 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 86 ha Jenipapo dos Vieiras fire, July 2016 17,664 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 69 ha Jenipapo dos Vieiras fire, August 2018 18,300 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
10,345 ha reached on 5 Aug2.0 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.54 hectares of built-up land and about 60 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Aug | 34.5 °C | 39 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Aug | 32.7 °C | 40 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 7 Aug | 33.6 °C | 43 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Aug | 33.4 °C | 47 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 9 Aug | 34.0 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 10 Aug | 34.7 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Aug | 34.9 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Aug | 34.8 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 13 Aug | 34.9 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Aug | 35.2 °C | 41 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Aug | 34.5 °C | 41 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Aug | 33.9 °C | 38 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 17 Aug | 34.1 °C | 38 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Aug | 34.6 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Aug | 35.6 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Aug | 34.6 °C | 50 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 21 Aug | 32.8 °C | 62 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 22 Aug | 33.3 °C | 50 % | 35 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 23 Aug | 35.2 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Aug | 35.1 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Aug | 34.8 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Aug | 35.2 °C | 39 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Aug | 35.1 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Aug | 35.2 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 29 Aug | 35.7 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 30 Aug | 35.0 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Aug | 35.7 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Sept | 34.6 °C | 38 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Sept | 34.6 °C | 47 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 51 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Sept after | 36.5 °C | 42 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 54 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Sept after | 35.7 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Sept after | 35.9 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Sept after | 36.8 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Sept after | 36.1 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Sept after | 36.8 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Sept after | 36.7 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 491Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,420 haBarra do Corda4 September 2017 · 41 days · 1 km away
- 35,272 haJenipapo dos Vieiras13 August 2017 · 47 days · 13 km away
- 18,300 haJenipapo dos Vieiras11 August 2018 · 24 days · 18 km away
- 17,664 haJenipapo dos Vieiras14 July 2016 · 43 days · 18 km away
- 100,645 haBarra do CordaAugust 2017 · 56 days · 34 km away
- 13,401 haJenipapo dos Vieiras23 August 2017 · 33 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Barra do Corda fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 August 2019 to 2 September 2019 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2019 to 2 September 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,272 hectares (102.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barra do Corda (10,345 ha, 2.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 8 August 2019 → 5 August 2019.
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
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 8 August 2019 to 2 September 2019. 491 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.
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.