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Comodoro fire, 31 August 2020 Comodoro

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2020, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2020 in Comodoro, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,709 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1558th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 720 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
3,709ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
31 Aug 2020 – 13 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
31 Aug
2020
Heat detections
191
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3112345678910111213

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
34km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.2 mm on 21 Sept.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,084 ha in 2016, 846 ha in 2017, 1,649 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,215 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Comodoro 18,238 inhabitants where it started
    3,731 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
31 Aug 34.6 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 34.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Sept 34.0 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Sept 33.9 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept 34.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Sept 35.4 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Sept 35.5 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Sept 35.5 °C 19 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Sept 34.7 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 35.8 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 36.2 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept 34.8 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Sept 33.3 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Sept 35.5 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept after 35.5 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept after 34.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept after 34.7 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept after 34.4 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Sept after 34.1 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Sept after 34.8 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Sept after 30.5 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
21 Sept after 32.1 °C 41 % 30 km/h 8.2 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2020
After · 20 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 · 191Every 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 Comodoro fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 August 2020 and 13 September 2020: 14 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 3,709 hectares (37.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Comodoro (3,731 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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.

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.