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Corumbá fire, 18 July 2020 Corumbá

Out · last detection 2 Aug 2020, 18:21 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2020 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,804 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 309th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 531 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
4,804ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
18 Jul 2020 – 1 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2020
Heat detections
312
in a single hotspot: 260 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul1 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242526272829303112

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
57km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 17 Aug.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 987 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    4,817 ha reached on 16 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)
16 Jul 35.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Jul 34.6 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Jul 34.8 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jul 34.7 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Jul 33.3 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Jul 33.0 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Jul 33.8 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Jul 34.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul 33.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul 24.5 °C 47 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Jul 28.4 °C 39 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jul 33.1 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jul 33.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul 22.2 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul 27.6 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
31 Jul 31.7 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Aug 34.2 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug after 33.8 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug after 33.8 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug after 35.1 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Aug after 33.6 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Aug after 33.5 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Aug after 34.2 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Aug after 34.6 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Aug after 34.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Aug after 35.1 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Aug after 35.5 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug after 28.6 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Aug after 32.3 °C 33 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug after 36.9 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug after 37.4 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 45
16 Aug after 28.8 °C 59 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm High 21
17 Aug after 32.9 °C 46 % 39 km/h 4.2 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2020
After · 8 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 · 312Every 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 18 July 2020 and 1 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 4,804 hectares (48.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (4,817 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.