Corumbá fire, 25 October 2019 Corumbá
The fire started on 25 October 2019 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,864 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 157th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 204 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.
- Burnt area
- 8,864ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 25 Oct 2019 – 3 Nov 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Oct
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 375
- in a single hotspot: 536 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 10.0GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.7 mm on 6 Nov.
This area had burned before
64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,521 ha in 2016, 778 ha in 2017, 2,019 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,665 ha that had burned before.
- 4,338 ha Corumbá fire, October 2016 9,663 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,019 ha Corumbá fire, December 2018 5,446 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 182 ha Corumbá fire, July 2016 3,311 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
8,906 ha reached on 25 Oct0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Oct | 40.1 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 26 Oct | 39.6 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Oct | 39.6 °C | 29 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Oct | 40.1 °C | 28 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Oct | 39.7 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Oct | 40.5 °C | 29 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 31 Oct | 40.9 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Nov | 36.6 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Nov | 38.8 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Nov | 38.5 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 4 Nov after | 38.9 °C | 29 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Nov after | 39.3 °C | 32 % | 46 km/h | 1.4 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Nov after | 33.3 °C | 48 % | 30 km/h | 4.7 mm | Low 7 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 375Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 22,659 haCorumbá30 July 2020 · 15 days · 6 km away
- 147,481 haCorumbá5 June 2024 · 32 days · 7 km away
- 21,988 haCorumbá17 July 2024 · 22 days · 20 km away
- 44,147 haCorumbá7 September 2021 · 25 days · 24 km away
- 41,691 haCorumbá14 July 2020 · 24 days · 29 km away
- 122,759 haCorumbá12 September 2021 · 25 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Corumbá fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 October 2019 and 3 November 2019: 10 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 8,864 hectares (88.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Corumbá (8,906 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
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.