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Corumbá fire, 8 September 2020 Corumbá

Out · last detection 14 Oct 2020, 17:13 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2020 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 37 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,800 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 138th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 210 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Corumbá · 2019Corumbá · 2020Corumbá · 2020Corumbá · 2024

Burnt area
9,800ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
37days
8 Sept 2020 – 14 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Sept
2020
Heat detections
1,050
in a single hotspot: 423 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
529MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept14 Oct
14 Oct 2020

How it evolved, day by day

8 Sept 2020 · 22 MW · 7 9 Sept 2020 · 30 MW · 6 10 Sept 2020 · 551 MW · 27 11 Sept 2020 · 1,405 MW · 60 12 Sept 2020 · 173 MW · 18 13 Sept 2020 · 8 MW · 7 15 Sept 2020 · 49 MW · 7 16 Sept 2020 · 22 MW · 6 17 Sept 2020 · 43 MW · 7 18 Sept 2020 · 37 MW · 5 21 Sept 2020 · 175 MW · 19 23 Sept 2020 · 100 MW · 10 24 Sept 2020 · 31 MW · 7 25 Sept 2020 · 192 MW · 18 26 Sept 2020 · 463 MW · 46 27 Sept 2020 · 779 MW · 62 28 Sept 2020 · 364 MW · 44 29 Sept 2020 · 399 MW · 29 30 Sept 2020 · 275 MW · 33 1 Oct 2020 · 1,578 MW · 52 2 Oct 2020 · 1,794 MW · 92 3 Oct 2020 · 338 MW · 60 4 Oct 2020 · 961 MW · 41 5 Oct 2020 · 1,134 MW · 58 6 Oct 2020 · 409 MW · 58 7 Oct 2020 · 997 MW · 38 8 Oct 2020 · 3,532 MW · 114 9 Oct 2020 · 476 MW · 47 10 Oct 2020 · 138 MW · 24 11 Oct 2020 · 5 MW · 2 13 Oct 2020 · 135 MW · 21 14 Oct 2020 · 323 MW · 25
8 Sept 13 Sept 21 Sept 27 Sept 2 Oct 7 Oct 8 Oct 13 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
54km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 15 Oct.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,839 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.2% of the area of London (98 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    9,788 ha reached on 8 Sept
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
8 Sept 30.8 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 37.2 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept 38.0 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Sept 39.3 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Sept 38.7 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Sept 39.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Sept 36.4 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Sept 32.6 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Sept 37.3 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept 35.3 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Sept 36.1 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Sept 33.9 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Sept 30.9 °C 47 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Sept 25.2 °C 55 % 49 km/h 3.7 mm Low 9
22 Sept 26.2 °C 54 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
23 Sept 35.7 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Sept 39.0 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Sept 39.8 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Sept 39.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Sept 38.4 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Sept 35.0 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Sept 38.8 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Sept 40.8 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Oct 40.5 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Oct 39.2 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Oct 39.5 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Oct 39.0 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Oct 38.1 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Oct 39.7 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Oct 39.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Oct 41.1 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Oct 41.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Oct 40.1 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Oct 36.5 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Oct 37.2 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm High 37
13 Oct 38.8 °C 31 % 28 km/h 1.3 mm High 27
14 Oct 38.5 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Oct after 31.6 °C 52 % 32 km/h 4.0 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2020
After · 21 Oct 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 · 1,050Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 September 2020 to 14 October 2020 (37 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 September 2020 to 14 October 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,800 hectares (98.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (9,788 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 15 September 2020 → 8 September 2020.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 September 2020 to 14 October 2020. 1,050 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.