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Cáceres fire, 18 August 2021 Cáceres

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2021, 05:58 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2021 in Cáceres, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,340 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 112th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 30 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
28,340ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
18 Aug 2021 – 26 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Aug
2021
Heat detections
1,427
in a single hotspot: 406 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
33.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242526

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
45km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,800 ha in 2019, 19,804 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,917 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cáceres 89,681 inhabitants where it started
    28,595 ha reached on 18 Aug
    1.2 %

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)
13 Aug 28.6 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug 30.4 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug 33.8 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Aug 36.4 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Aug 37.3 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Aug 38.7 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Aug 37.7 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 Aug 37.1 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Aug 36.9 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Aug 37.7 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
23 Aug 37.9 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 Aug 38.2 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
25 Aug 38.0 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Aug 28.4 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug after 29.5 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Aug after 32.6 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug after 33.0 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
30 Aug after 33.7 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug after 36.8 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept after 38.5 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept after 37.2 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept after 36.6 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
4 Sept after 36.6 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept after 37.8 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2021
After · 2 Sept 2021

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 · 1,427Every 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 18 August 2021 and 26 August 2021: 9 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 28,340 hectares (283.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cáceres (28,595 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.