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Corumbá fire, 22 July 2020 Corumbá

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2020, 05:32 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2020 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,730 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 120th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 184 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
10,730ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
22 Jul 2020 – 18 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Jul
2020
Heat detections
636
in a single hotspot: 96 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
7.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
63km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 20 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    10,727 ha reached on 18 Jul
    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 Jul 33.9 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul 34.4 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jul 34.1 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jul 33.1 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jul 32.8 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jul 33.1 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jul 34.0 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul 33.0 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jul 23.5 °C 46 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul 29.2 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jul 32.9 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jul 32.9 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jul 24.1 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jul 27.6 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jul 30.6 °C 41 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Aug 33.1 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug 33.0 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Aug 33.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug 34.1 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Aug 32.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Aug 33.4 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Aug 33.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Aug 33.4 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 33.8 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Aug 34.5 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Aug 34.8 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Aug 31.6 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Aug 33.0 °C 28 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug 36.7 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Aug 36.8 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Aug 31.4 °C 49 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Aug 33.6 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Aug 35.7 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Aug after 36.3 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug after 22.2 °C 74 % 57 km/h 4.2 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jul 2020
After · 25 Aug 2020

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 · 636Every 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 22 July 2020 and 18 August 2020: 28 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 10,730 hectares (107.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (10,727 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.