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Corumbá fire, 16 September 2020 Corumbá

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2020, 17:50 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2020 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 43 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 51,403 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 21 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Corumbá · 2018Corumbá · 2024Corumbá · 2021Corumbá · 2024

Burnt area
51,403ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
43days
16 Sept 2020 – 28 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Sept
2020
Heat detections
2,307
in a single hotspot: 157 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
866MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept28 Oct
28 Oct 2020

How it evolved, day by day

16 Sept 2020 · 30 MW · 3 17 Sept 2020 · 9 MW · 4 18 Sept 2020 · 4 MW · 2 20 Sept 2020 · 19 MW · 3 21 Sept 2020 · 53 MW · 13 23 Sept 2020 · 80 MW · 7 24 Sept 2020 · 174 MW · 8 25 Sept 2020 · 1,957 MW · 81 26 Sept 2020 · 2,776 MW · 112 27 Sept 2020 · 1,549 MW · 129 28 Sept 2020 · 1,076 MW · 73 29 Sept 2020 · 3,590 MW · 155 30 Sept 2020 · 2,704 MW · 227 1 Oct 2020 · 1,771 MW · 159 2 Oct 2020 · 1,327 MW · 132 3 Oct 2020 · 2,130 MW · 150 4 Oct 2020 · 972 MW · 78 5 Oct 2020 · 912 MW · 82 6 Oct 2020 · 1,508 MW · 120 7 Oct 2020 · 1,863 MW · 115 8 Oct 2020 · 2,349 MW · 152 9 Oct 2020 · 327 MW · 42 10 Oct 2020 · 562 MW · 79 11 Oct 2020 · 382 MW · 74 12 Oct 2020 · 708 MW · 39 13 Oct 2020 · 439 MW · 44 14 Oct 2020 · 1,022 MW · 64 15 Oct 2020 · 62 MW · 20 18 Oct 2020 · 73 MW · 9 19 Oct 2020 · 229 MW · 19 20 Oct 2020 · 109 MW · 11 21 Oct 2020 · 556 MW · 31 22 Oct 2020 · 288 MW · 24 24 Oct 2020 · 48 MW · 9 25 Oct 2020 · 355 MW · 30 26 Oct 2020 · 12 MW · 6 28 Oct 2020 · 12 MW · 1
16 Sept 24 Sept 29 Sept 30 Sept 6 Oct 12 Oct 20 Oct 28 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
51km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.0 mm on 29 Oct.

This area had burned before

12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 453 ha in 2017, 4,548 ha in 2018, 1,574 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,950 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 32% of the area of London (514 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
    51,421 ha reached on 16 Sept
    0.8 %

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)
16 Sept 38.5 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept 37.9 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept 36.4 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept 36.7 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept 32.1 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Sept 28.7 °C 44 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
22 Sept 29.5 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Sept 36.5 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Sept 39.4 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Sept 40.9 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
26 Sept 41.6 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
27 Sept 39.8 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
28 Sept 37.3 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Sept 41.1 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Sept 42.5 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
1 Oct 42.0 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
2 Oct 40.2 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Oct 42.0 °C 18 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Oct 40.3 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Oct 41.4 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Oct 42.0 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Oct 40.7 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Oct 42.3 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Oct 42.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Oct 40.8 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Oct 37.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Oct 37.2 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Oct 39.2 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Oct 39.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Oct 31.3 °C 50 % 36 km/h 7.6 mm Low 8
16 Oct 34.1 °C 46 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Oct 37.4 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
18 Oct 37.7 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Oct 35.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 6.7 mm Moderate 12
20 Oct 33.7 °C 54 % 31 km/h 6.4 mm Very low 4
21 Oct 30.7 °C 57 % 27 km/h 0.6 mm Low 8
22 Oct 36.3 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
23 Oct 31.7 °C 54 % 23 km/h 2.2 mm Low 6
24 Oct 37.2 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 17
25 Oct 36.5 °C 39 % 36 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 21
26 Oct 35.4 °C 43 % 46 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 14
27 Oct 31.0 °C 51 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
28 Oct 35.9 °C 41 % 35 km/h 7.1 mm Low 7
29 Oct after 27.7 °C 70 % 42 km/h 10.0 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2020
After · 4 Nov 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 · 2,307Every 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 16 September 2020 to 28 October 2020 (43 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 September 2020 to 26 October 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 51,403 hectares (514.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (51,421 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 26 October 2020 → 28 October 2020.
  2. Start date: 20 September 2020 → 16 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 September 2020 to 26 October 2020. 2,307 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.