Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Corumbá fire, 27 August 2020 Corumbá

Out · last detection 31 Aug 2020, 05:08 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2020 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,637 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 323th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 550 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
4,637ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
27 Aug 2020 – 31 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Aug
2020
Heat detections
189
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2728293031

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
40km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 881 ha in 2016, 457 ha in 2017, 307 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,534 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    4,706 ha reached on 27 Aug
    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)
27 Aug 37.1 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
28 Aug 37.6 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Aug 38.4 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Aug 37.6 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Aug 27.2 °C 47 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Sept after 26.5 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Sept after 24.3 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Sept after 28.8 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Sept after 34.5 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Sept after 38.5 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Sept after 37.6 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept after 28.4 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Sept after 28.9 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Sept after 37.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Sept after 38.6 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2020
After · 7 Sept 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 · 189Every 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 27 August 2020 and 31 August 2020: 5 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 4,637 hectares (46.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (4,706 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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.