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Comodoro fire, September 2020 Comodoro

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2020, 17:21 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2020 in Comodoro, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,906 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 544th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 237 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
8,906ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
5 Sept 2020 – 17 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2020
Heat detections
326
in a single hotspot: 378 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
36km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 21 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Comodoro 18,238 inhabitants where it started
    8,947 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.4 %

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)
5 Sept 35.7 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Sept 35.9 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Sept 36.5 °C 15 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Sept 35.8 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Sept 36.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Sept 36.8 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept 35.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept 33.8 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Sept 36.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept 35.9 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Sept 35.4 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Sept 35.1 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Sept 35.5 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept after 34.4 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 35.8 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
20 Sept after 32.1 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Sept after 33.6 °C 35 % 29 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2020
After · 24 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 · 326Every 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 5 September 2020 and 17 September 2020: 13 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 8,906 hectares (89.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Comodoro (8,947 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.

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.

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.