Corumbá fire, 30 July 2020 Corumbá
The fire started on 30 July 2020 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,659 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 51th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 66 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.
- Burnt area
- 22,659ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 30 Jul 2020 – 13 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 30 Jul
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 1,125
- in a single hotspot: 234 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 21.8GW
- 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 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.9 mm on 20 Aug.
This area had burned before
76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,313 ha in 2016, 1,036 ha in 2017, 2,944 ha in 2018, 16,834 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,166 ha that had burned before.
- 6,938 ha Corumbá fire, July 2019 8,785 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,279 ha Corumbá fire, October 2016 9,663 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,835 ha Corumbá fire, October 2019 8,864 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,034 ha Corumbá fire, July 2016 3,311 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,944 ha Corumbá fire, December 2018 5,446 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,595 ha Corumbá fire, October 2019 17,566 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 248 ha Corumbá fire, January 2019 3,890 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
22,765 ha reached on 23 Jul0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jul | 34.7 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Jul | 33.2 °C | 33 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Jul | 23.1 °C | 44 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Jul | 28.3 °C | 39 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 27 Jul | 33.1 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Jul | 32.7 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Jul | 23.8 °C | 43 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Jul | 28.1 °C | 37 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 31 Jul | 31.4 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 1 Aug | 35.1 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Aug | 34.2 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 3 Aug | 34.2 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Aug | 34.2 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 5 Aug | 33.8 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Aug | 34.2 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Aug | 34.1 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Aug | 34.4 °C | 20 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Aug | 34.9 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 10 Aug | 35.2 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 11 Aug | 35.5 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 12 Aug | 28.8 °C | 33 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Aug | 34.2 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Aug after | 37.1 °C | 24 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 15 Aug after | 37.0 °C | 29 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 16 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 48 % | 31 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 25 |
| 18 Aug after | 36.5 °C | 29 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Aug after | 37.6 °C | 28 % | 50 km/h | 0.4 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 20 Aug after | 22.6 °C | 67 % | 49 km/h | 8.9 mm | Very low 4 |
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 · 1,125Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 147,481 haCorumbá5 June 2024 · 32 days · 2 km away
- 20,334 haCorumbá27 September 2021 · 7 days · 15 km away
- 21,988 haCorumbá17 July 2024 · 22 days · 16 km away
- 44,147 haCorumbá7 September 2021 · 25 days · 22 km away
- 41,691 haCorumbá14 July 2020 · 24 days · 24 km away
- 122,759 haCorumbá12 September 2021 · 25 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Corumbá fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 July 2020 and 13 August 2020: 15 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 22,659 hectares (226.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Corumbá (22,765 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
- 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.