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Cáceres fire, 29 August 2019 Cáceres, Porto Estrela, Nossa Senhora do Livramento

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2019, 17:51 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2019 in Cáceres, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 56,950 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 41th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 9 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
56,950ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
29 Aug 2019 – 24 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
29 Aug
2019
Heat detections
2,369
in a single hotspot: 182 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
18.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

293031234567891011121314151617181920212324

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
55km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.8 mm on 5 Oct.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 110 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Cáceres 89,681 inhabitants where it started
    53,775 ha reached on 23 Aug
    2.2 %
  2. Porto Estrela 3,224 inhabitants
    2,476 ha reached on 31 Aug
    1.2 %
  3. Nossa Senhora do Livramento
    885 ha reached on 20 Sept
    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)
23 Aug 31.5 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Aug 34.1 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Aug 34.5 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Aug 34.7 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm High 35
27 Aug 26.3 °C 70 % 21 km/h 1.5 mm Low 8
28 Aug 31.3 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
29 Aug 33.5 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
30 Aug 34.6 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Aug 34.8 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
1 Sept 29.3 °C 54 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Sept 30.0 °C 51 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Sept 32.5 °C 49 % 27 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 12
4 Sept 33.7 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Sept 33.1 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Sept 37.1 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Sept 37.1 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Sept 36.7 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Sept 36.4 °C 24 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Sept 37.2 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept 37.6 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept 31.7 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Sept 28.9 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Sept 35.8 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Sept 38.1 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept 38.6 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Sept 37.9 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept 38.3 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept 37.0 °C 29 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Sept 37.8 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept 33.4 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Sept 32.7 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Sept 35.8 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
24 Sept 35.7 °C 41 % 36 km/h 1.1 mm High 24
25 Sept after 30.4 °C 61 % 34 km/h 9.7 mm Very low 4
26 Sept after 27.4 °C 66 % 30 km/h 5.9 mm Very low 1
27 Sept after 30.8 °C 57 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Low 5
28 Sept after 33.4 °C 47 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
29 Sept after 34.0 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
30 Sept after 34.8 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Oct after 35.1 °C 39 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Oct after 29.9 °C 54 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
3 Oct after 34.3 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Oct after 35.4 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm High 23
5 Oct after 31.5 °C 54 % 44 km/h 7.8 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2019
After · 1 Oct 2019

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 · 2,369Every 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 Cáceres fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2019 and 24 September 2019: 27 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 56,950 hectares (569.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cáceres (53,775 ha, 2.2 %); Porto Estrela (2,476 ha, 1.2 %); Nossa Senhora do Livramento (885 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.