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Corumbá fire, 4 August 2021 Corumbá

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2021, 04:18 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2021 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,946 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 67th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 77 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
16,946ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
4 Aug 2021 – 25 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Aug
2021
Heat detections
856
in a single hotspot: 462 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
31.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314151617181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
61km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.8 mm on 26 Aug.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,792 ha in 2016, 108 ha in 2017, 15,962 ha in 2019, 661 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,134 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    17,148 ha reached on 5 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
4 Aug 29.4 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug 29.4 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Aug 33.6 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug 35.9 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Aug 36.4 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Aug 36.6 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Aug 24.1 °C 44 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug 18.7 °C 58 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Aug 23.0 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Aug 24.9 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Aug 29.5 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug 32.5 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Aug 36.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Aug 38.5 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Aug 39.4 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Aug 38.7 °C 16 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
20 Aug 38.7 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
21 Aug 37.0 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Aug 38.8 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
23 Aug 38.6 °C 26 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
24 Aug 39.1 °C 22 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
25 Aug 34.9 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Aug after 20.9 °C 57 % 49 km/h 6.8 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2021
After · 1 Sept 2021

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 · 856Every 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 4 August 2021 and 25 August 2021: 22 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 16,946 hectares (169.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (17,148 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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

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.

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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.