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Cáceres fire, 12 September 2020 Cáceres

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2020, 04:10 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2020 in Cáceres, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 38,765 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 71th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 32 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
38,765ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
12 Sept 2020 – 19 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Sept
2020
Heat detections
1,194
in a single hotspot: 285 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
19.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516171819

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
50km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 893 ha in 2018, 13,934 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Cáceres 89,681 inhabitants where it started
    39,083 ha reached on 11 Sept
    1.6 %

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)
12 Sept 39.4 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Sept 40.0 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Sept 39.3 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Sept 33.7 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Sept 38.8 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept 38.0 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept 38.0 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Sept 39.0 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 Sept after 33.2 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Sept after 31.1 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
22 Sept after 30.8 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Sept after 35.7 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Sept after 37.6 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Sept after 39.8 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Sept after 38.4 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 56
27 Sept after 37.8 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Sept after 35.6 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Sept after 38.8 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Sept after 40.5 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Oct after 40.4 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Oct after 39.3 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Oct after 40.5 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Oct after 39.6 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
5 Oct after 40.3 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Oct after 39.5 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2020
After · 26 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 · 1,194Every 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 12 September 2020 and 19 September 2020: 8 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 38,765 hectares (387.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cáceres (39,083 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.

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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.