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Cáceres fire, 7 July 2020 Cáceres

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2020, 17:25 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2020 in Cáceres, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,277 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 202th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 84 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: San Matías · 2019Cáceres · 2024San Matías · 2021Cáceres · 2020

Burnt area
19,277ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
7 Jul 2020 – 5 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Jul
2020
Heat detections
1,073
in a single hotspot: 198 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
444MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul5 Aug
5 Aug 2020

How it evolved, day by day

7 Jul 2020 · 14 MW · 2 8 Jul 2020 · 35 MW · 8 9 Jul 2020 · 521 MW · 28 10 Jul 2020 · 727 MW · 43 11 Jul 2020 · 914 MW · 84 12 Jul 2020 · 2,038 MW · 128 13 Jul 2020 · 1,208 MW · 97 14 Jul 2020 · 936 MW · 96 15 Jul 2020 · 305 MW · 33 16 Jul 2020 · 813 MW · 45 17 Jul 2020 · 193 MW · 21 18 Jul 2020 · 230 MW · 24 19 Jul 2020 · 603 MW · 43 20 Jul 2020 · 431 MW · 41 21 Jul 2020 · 439 MW · 41 22 Jul 2020 · 298 MW · 35 23 Jul 2020 · 169 MW · 24 24 Jul 2020 · 165 MW · 21 25 Jul 2020 · 1,182 MW · 84 26 Jul 2020 · 505 MW · 43 27 Jul 2020 · 63 MW · 13 28 Jul 2020 · 190 MW · 24 29 Jul 2020 · 111 MW · 25 30 Jul 2020 · 38 MW · 8 1 Aug 2020 · 233 MW · 12 2 Aug 2020 · 145 MW · 19 3 Aug 2020 · 76 MW · 10 4 Aug 2020 · 271 MW · 19 5 Aug 2020 · 23 MW · 2
7 Jul 12 Jul 17 Jul 22 Jul 27 Jul 2 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
58km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 225 ha in 2017, 2,697 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,689 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (193 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Cáceres 89,681 inhabitants where it started
    14,359 ha reached on 7 Jul
    0.6 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
7 Jul 34.1 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Jul 22.0 °C 57 % 39 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
9 Jul 24.9 °C 51 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Jul 32.0 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Jul 33.8 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Jul 34.2 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Jul 34.6 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Jul 33.5 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Jul 34.3 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Jul 36.4 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jul 35.4 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Jul 35.9 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Jul 35.8 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Jul 34.9 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jul 34.3 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Jul 34.8 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Jul 35.6 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul 34.8 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul 24.6 °C 41 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jul 29.0 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Jul 34.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Jul 34.1 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jul 26.6 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul 29.3 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Jul 32.1 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Aug 35.8 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Aug 35.0 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Aug 35.0 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Aug 36.1 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Aug 35.0 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Aug after 34.5 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Aug after 35.3 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Aug after 35.2 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug after 35.7 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Aug after 36.2 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Aug after 36.5 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug after 33.1 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug after 34.2 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 37.9 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Aug after 37.9 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2020
After · 12 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 · 1,073Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 July 2020 to 5 August 2020 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 July 2020 to 29 July 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 19,277 hectares (192.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cáceres (14,359 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 July 2020 to 29 July 2020. 1,073 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.