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Cáceres fire, 9 August 2020 Cáceres

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2020, 17:51 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2020 in Cáceres, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 46,153 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 24 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: San Matías · 2021San Matías · 2020San Matías · 2023

Burnt area
46,153ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
9 Aug 2020 – 10 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Aug
2020
Heat detections
2,714
in a single hotspot: 498 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug10 Sept
10 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

9 Aug 2020 · 1,698 MW · 123 10 Aug 2020 · 3,891 MW · 110 11 Aug 2020 · 427 MW · 50 12 Aug 2020 · 57 MW · 18 13 Aug 2020 · 269 MW · 36 14 Aug 2020 · 4,512 MW · 101 15 Aug 2020 · 5,107 MW · 268 16 Aug 2020 · 2,402 MW · 109 17 Aug 2020 · 534 MW · 70 18 Aug 2020 · 800 MW · 82 19 Aug 2020 · 5,474 MW · 399 20 Aug 2020 · 255 MW · 78 22 Aug 2020 · 21 MW · 4 23 Aug 2020 · 137 MW · 23 24 Aug 2020 · 219 MW · 55 25 Aug 2020 · 2,207 MW · 202 26 Aug 2020 · 1,207 MW · 193 27 Aug 2020 · 1,037 MW · 123 28 Aug 2020 · 426 MW · 66 29 Aug 2020 · 1,268 MW · 122 30 Aug 2020 · 812 MW · 87 31 Aug 2020 · 1,972 MW · 130 1 Sept 2020 · 1,615 MW · 134 2 Sept 2020 · 314 MW · 33 3 Sept 2020 · 202 MW · 25 4 Sept 2020 · 63 MW · 15 5 Sept 2020 · 663 MW · 37 6 Sept 2020 · 30 MW · 4 7 Sept 2020 · 6 MW · 2 8 Sept 2020 · 3 MW · 1 9 Sept 2020 · 445 MW · 13 10 Sept 2020 · 5 MW · 1
9 Aug 14 Aug 19 Aug 25 Aug 30 Aug 4 Sept 9 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
53km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 244 ha in 2018, 3 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 29% of the area of London (462 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
    46,223 ha reached on 10 Aug
    1.9 %

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 area0.11 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.11 hectares of 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)
9 Aug 35.6 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Aug 36.2 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Aug 36.5 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 34.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Aug 34.9 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug 38.6 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug 38.3 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Aug 33.7 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
17 Aug 35.6 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug 38.7 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Aug 38.7 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Aug 24.4 °C 65 % 53 km/h 2.8 mm Low 11
21 Aug 14.4 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
22 Aug 22.2 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Aug 29.9 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Aug 35.9 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Aug 38.2 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug 38.3 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug 39.0 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Aug 39.2 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Aug 40.3 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Aug 38.7 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 35.0 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Sept 33.4 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Sept 31.6 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Sept 33.2 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept 37.6 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept 39.3 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Sept 39.6 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Sept 36.2 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Sept 33.2 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 39.2 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Sept 40.2 °C 18 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Sept after 40.7 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Sept after 39.5 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Sept after 40.4 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Sept after 39.7 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
15 Sept after 33.4 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept after 39.4 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Sept after 38.9 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept after 37.5 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept after 37.5 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 32.6 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2020
After · 17 Sept 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 · 2,714Every 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 9 August 2020 to 10 September 2020 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 August 2020 to 6 September 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 46,153 hectares (461.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cáceres (46,223 ha, 1.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 6 September 2020 → 10 September 2020.
  2. Start date: 11 August 2020 → 9 August 2020.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 August 2020 to 6 September 2020. 2,714 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.