Corumbá fire, 19 September 2020 Corumbá, Barão de Melgaço
The fire started on 19 September 2020 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,275 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 28th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 36 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 36,275ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 19 Sept 2020 – 15 Oct 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 19 Sept
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 1,741
- in a single hotspot: 253 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.1GW
- detected power per day, on average
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 19 Oct.
This area had burned before
78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,526 ha in 2016, 25,950 ha in 2017, 7,842 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 28,428 ha that had burned before.
- 17,709 ha Corumbá fire, July 2017 36,868 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,073 ha Corumbá fire, August 2017 12,286 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,526 ha Corumbá fire, August 2019 6,041 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,889 ha Corumbá fire, August 2019 33,753 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 307 ha Corumbá fire, August 2017 10,521 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
36,111 ha reached on 19 Sept0.6 %
-
Barão de Melgaço 15,246 inhabitants0 ha reached on 2 Oct0.0 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.34 hectares of 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Sept | 38.7 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 20 Sept | 32.8 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Sept | 33.0 °C | 34 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Sept | 32.2 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Sept | 37.4 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Sept | 39.9 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Sept | 41.7 °C | 7 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 26 Sept | 39.8 °C | 25 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 27 Sept | 40.0 °C | 19 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 28 Sept | 38.4 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Sept | 41.5 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 30 Sept | 42.9 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 1 Oct | 42.3 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 2 Oct | 40.2 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 3 Oct | 42.3 °C | 14 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 4 Oct | 41.9 °C | 8 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 5 Oct | 42.8 °C | 15 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 6 Oct | 42.4 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 Oct | 40.8 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Oct | 42.8 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 9 Oct | 42.8 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 10 Oct | 41.0 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 11 Oct | 37.1 °C | 34 % | 45 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Oct | 37.0 °C | 35 % | 21 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 27 |
| 13 Oct | 39.6 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Oct | 39.9 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very high 38 |
| 15 Oct | 35.3 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 12.4 mm | Low 9 |
| 16 Oct after | 33.6 °C | 45 % | 18 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 17 Oct after | 37.2 °C | 34 % | 18 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Oct after | 38.4 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Oct after | 35.7 °C | 37 % | 38 km/h | 2.6 mm | Moderate 20 |
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 · 1,741Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 36,868 haCorumbá16 July 2017 · 31 days · 4 km away
- 31,667 haCorumbá27 September 2020 · 8 days · 20 km away
- 33,753 haCorumbá7 August 2019 · 18 days · 21 km away
- 82,094 haBarão de Melgaço3 September 2024 · 52 days · 31 km away
- 30,332 haCorumbá19 September 2020 · 21 days · 34 km away
- 20,668 haCorumbá22 August 2017 · 25 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Corumbá fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 September 2020 to 15 October 2020 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 September 2020 to 9 October 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 36,275 hectares (362.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Corumbá (36,111 ha, 0.6 %); Barão de Melgaço (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 42.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.
- Last day with fire: 9 October 2020 → 15 October 2020.
- Start date: 21 September 2020 → 19 September 2020.
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
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 21 September 2020 to 9 October 2020. 1,741 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.
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.