Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Corumbá fire, 21 July 2019 Corumbá

Out · last detection 7 Aug 2019, 17:50 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2019 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,785 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 159th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 207 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
8,785ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
21 Jul 2019 – 6 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 Jul
2019
Heat detections
327
in a single hotspot: 126 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

212223242627282930311234567

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
61km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,283 ha in 2016, 824 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,312 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    8,824 ha reached on 21 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
21 Jul 31.8 °C 35 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jul 31.9 °C 41 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jul 33.4 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Jul 24.5 °C 54 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jul 19.2 °C 58 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Jul 19.9 °C 59 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
27 Jul 24.9 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
28 Jul 29.3 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Jul 32.0 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Jul 33.4 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jul 33.2 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Aug 34.7 °C 30 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Aug 25.3 °C 43 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug 20.5 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Aug 23.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Aug 26.4 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Aug 30.9 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Aug after 33.1 °C 39 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Aug after 34.2 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Aug after 33.5 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug after 26.0 °C 48 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Aug after 32.9 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug after 35.2 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Aug after 27.3 °C 44 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug after 24.5 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug after 31.8 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Aug after 33.9 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Aug after 36.0 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Aug after 36.2 °C 35 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Aug after 27.8 °C 47 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Aug after 29.5 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Aug after 32.3 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Aug after 35.6 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug after 32.4 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2019
After · 13 Aug 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 · 327Every 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 21 July 2019 and 6 August 2019: 17 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 8,785 hectares (87.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (8,824 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

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.