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Corumbá fire, 30 August 2017 Corumbá

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2017, 17:13 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2017 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 30,304 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 39 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
30,304ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
30 Aug 2017 – 21 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2017
Heat detections
1,040
in a single hotspot: 150 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
13.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug21 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

301234567891011121314151617181920

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
47km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 783 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    30,279 ha reached on 23 Aug
    0.5 %

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)
23 Aug 34.4 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
24 Aug 34.9 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Aug 35.1 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Aug 36.0 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug 37.0 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug 37.2 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Aug 38.4 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug 39.1 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Aug 36.2 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Sept 38.8 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Sept 38.8 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Sept 37.6 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Sept 37.5 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Sept 35.3 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Sept 35.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Sept 37.1 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Sept 38.4 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Sept 38.1 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Sept 38.6 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Sept 36.0 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm High 30
12 Sept 37.1 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept 38.7 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Sept 38.4 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Sept 39.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Sept 32.9 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Sept 31.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept 36.8 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Sept 37.9 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept 38.5 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Sept 38.3 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Sept after 36.9 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Sept after 36.3 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Sept after 37.0 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Sept after 38.2 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 52
26 Sept after 36.9 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
27 Sept after 37.6 °C 26 % 44 km/h 2.2 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2017
After · 28 Sept 2017

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 · 1,040Every 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 Corumbá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2017 and 21 September 2017: 23 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 30,304 hectares (303.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (30,279 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.