Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · –

Colniza fire, 22 August 2022 Colniza

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2022, 17:54 UTC

The fire started on 22 August 2022 in Colniza, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,430 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1592th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1872 with a page). Number 533 in Brazil in 2022, of 682.

Burnt area
3,430ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
22 Aug 2022 – 16 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Aug
2022
Heat detections
334
in a single hotspot: 246 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
162MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Aug16 Sept
16 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

22 Aug 2022 · 510 MW · 26 23 Aug 2022 · 115 MW · 9 24 Aug 2022 · 37 MW · 9 25 Aug 2022 · 121 MW · 13 26 Aug 2022 · 12 MW · 1 27 Aug 2022 · 5 MW · 1 30 Aug 2022 · 276 MW · 12 31 Aug 2022 · 315 MW · 27 1 Sept 2022 · 317 MW · 20 2 Sept 2022 · 95 MW · 21 3 Sept 2022 · 320 MW · 37 4 Sept 2022 · 577 MW · 68 5 Sept 2022 · 248 MW · 34 6 Sept 2022 · 239 MW · 33 7 Sept 2022 · 7 MW · 7 8 Sept 2022 · 14 MW · 5 9 Sept 2022 · 2 MW · 1 11 Sept 2022 · 13 MW · 2 14 Sept 2022 · 18 MW · 4 16 Sept 2022 · 12 MW · 4
22 Aug 26 Aug 1 Sept 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

36°high
37km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.9 mm on 18 Sept.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 452 ha in 2016, 1,333 ha in 2017, 726 ha in 2018, 1,986 ha in 2019, 2,218 ha in 2020, 1,768 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,541 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (34 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. Colniza where it started
    3,450 ha reached on 22 Aug
    0.1 %

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 area0.31 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.31 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)
22 Aug 33.3 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Aug 34.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Aug 34.8 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Aug 33.6 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Aug 33.4 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
27 Aug 34.1 °C 46 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
28 Aug 34.8 °C 50 % 20 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 18
29 Aug 34.0 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Aug 34.2 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Aug 35.1 °C 33 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Sept 34.4 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Sept 35.0 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Sept 36.2 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Sept 34.6 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Sept 34.6 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Sept 33.3 °C 39 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Sept 34.1 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
8 Sept 34.1 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
9 Sept 35.0 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
10 Sept 33.9 °C 47 % 18 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
11 Sept 34.2 °C 49 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
12 Sept 33.3 °C 49 % 21 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 12
13 Sept 33.6 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
14 Sept 34.6 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Sept 32.4 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
16 Sept 35.2 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
17 Sept after 34.5 °C 42 % 17 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
18 Sept after 28.9 °C 60 % 31 km/h 7.9 mm Very low 3

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 21.5, a minimum humidity of 35% and 3 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 21.

FWI at the start 21.5
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 3
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Colniza fire, August 2016
4,122 ha 22 days FWI 22.1 Min. humidity 34 % 133 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.3 mm on 14 Sept.

What happened to them

12 days
median duration
3,648 ha
median area
0 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 21 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (3,430 ha against a median of 3,648 ha) and lasted 26 days, against 12 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 2.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

7.9 mmfirst rain
18 Sept2 days after it ended
37km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 16 Sept, and on 18 Sept 7.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 21, with a median of 2.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2022
After · 23 Sept 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 6 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 551 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 274: 18 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak551 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM10788 µg/m³
Optical depth2.93
27 Aug31 Aug4 Sept8 Sept12 Sept
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 334Every 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 Colniza fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 August 2022 to 16 September 2022 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 August 2022 to 9 September 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,430 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Colniza (3,450 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 21. Their median duration was 12 days and their median area 3,648 ha; 0 % went past 10,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 2.6 mm.

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: 9 September 2022 → 16 September 2022.
  2. Start date: 29 August 2022 → 22 August 2022.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 29 August 2022 to 9 September 2022. 334 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.