Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Corumbá fire, May 2022 Corumbá, Aquidauana

Out · last detection 7 Jun 2022, 17:43 UTC

The fire started on 20 May 2022 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,640 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 40th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 17 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
28,640ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
20 May 2022 – 7 Jun 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
20 May
2022
Heat detections
1,700
in a single hotspot: 298 MW
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Energy released
26.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Jun 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 May7 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

202122252627282930234567

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
58km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 8 Jun.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 278 ha in 2019, 696 ha in 2020, 22,229 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,236 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    28,042 ha reached on 20 May
    0.4 %
  2. Aquidauana 46,803 inhabitants
    823 ha reached on 5 Jun
    0.0 %

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)
20 May 24.0 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
21 May 27.8 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
22 May 29.6 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 May 32.8 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
24 May 34.0 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 May 34.8 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 May 33.5 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
27 May 34.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 May 34.6 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 May 33.8 °C 37 % 58 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
30 May 30.4 °C 48 % 39 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 15
31 May 22.4 °C 74 % 29 km/h 29.6 mm Very low 0
1 Jun 26.4 °C 59 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
2 Jun 26.0 °C 57 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
3 Jun 26.0 °C 57 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
4 Jun 30.3 °C 50 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
5 Jun 33.6 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Jun 32.8 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Jun 30.0 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
8 Jun after 28.8 °C 58 % 31 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 May 2022
After · 14 Jun 2022

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 · 1,700Every 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 20 May 2022 and 7 June 2022: 19 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 28,640 hectares (286.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Corumbá (28,042 ha, 0.4 %); Aquidauana (823 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.