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Corumbá fire, 4 September 2019 Corumbá

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2019, 05:01 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2019 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,390 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 86th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 95 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
14,390ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
4 Sept 2019 – 25 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2019
Heat detections
504
in a single hotspot: 119 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept25 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
50km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.1 mm on 26 Sept.

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,723 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    14,350 ha reached on 4 Sept
    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)
4 Sept 36.6 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Sept 36.8 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Sept 38.8 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Sept 39.3 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Sept 39.0 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 39.5 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Sept 39.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept 38.7 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 31.3 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 31.5 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Sept 37.3 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Sept 39.2 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Sept 40.2 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Sept 36.8 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept 37.5 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Sept 39.3 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Sept 40.8 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Sept 36.3 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Sept 36.3 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Sept 38.1 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Sept 38.7 °C 37 % 35 km/h 3.2 mm Moderate 21
25 Sept 30.5 °C 66 % 34 km/h 11.6 mm Very low 3
26 Sept after 30.5 °C 62 % 26 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2019
After · 2 Oct 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 · 504Every 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 4 September 2019 and 25 September 2019: 22 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 14,390 hectares (143.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (14,350 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.