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Corumbá fire, 20 January 2019 Corumbá

Out · last detection 7 Feb 2019, 17:44 UTC

The fire started on 20 January 2019 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,380 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 113th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 136 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
11,380ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
20 Jan 2019 – 6 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Jan
2019
Heat detections
366
in a single hotspot: 309 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
5.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Feb 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jan6 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2022232425272930311234567

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
56km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.6 mm on 12 Feb.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,394 ha in 2016, 1,964 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,074 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    11,532 ha reached on 17 Jan
    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)
17 Jan 38.6 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
18 Jan 34.7 °C 47 % 35 km/h 10.7 mm Very low 1
19 Jan 27.9 °C 66 % 38 km/h 13.2 mm Very low 0
20 Jan 32.1 °C 53 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
21 Jan 36.0 °C 47 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm Low 6
22 Jan 37.2 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
23 Jan 38.9 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
24 Jan 38.6 °C 40 % 21 km/h 1.3 mm Low 10
25 Jan 36.1 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm Low 10
26 Jan 37.9 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
27 Jan 35.6 °C 48 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 12
28 Jan 33.7 °C 50 % 46 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 4
29 Jan 33.5 °C 49 % 56 km/h 0.2 mm Low 11
30 Jan 36.7 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
31 Jan 34.8 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
1 Feb 37.0 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
2 Feb 36.3 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Feb 34.6 °C 49 % 30 km/h 9.6 mm Very low 2
4 Feb 33.5 °C 55 % 31 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 2
5 Feb 33.7 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm Low 7
6 Feb 35.5 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
7 Feb after 36.9 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
8 Feb after 39.1 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13
9 Feb after 37.3 °C 47 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
10 Feb after 36.2 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 16
11 Feb after 37.1 °C 41 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
12 Feb after 34.1 °C 52 % 34 km/h 13.6 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jan 2019
After · 13 Feb 2019

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 · 366Every 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 20 January 2019 and 6 February 2019: 18 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 11,380 hectares (113.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (11,532 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, class Moderate.
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.