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Corumbá fire, 18 October 2023 Corumbá

Out · last detection 24 Oct 2023, 04:23 UTC

The fire started on 18 October 2023 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,247 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 288th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 156 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
5,247ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
18 Oct 2023 – 24 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Oct
2023
Heat detections
239
in a single hotspot: 140 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Oct24 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

181921222324

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
50km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 28 Oct.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,041 ha in 2017, 1,671 ha in 2019, 4,286 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,238 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    5,222 ha reached on 17 Oct
    0.1 %

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)
17 Oct 40.6 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
18 Oct 40.9 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Oct 42.2 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Oct 41.4 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Oct 41.0 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 43
22 Oct 41.8 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Oct 40.8 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44
24 Oct 38.9 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
25 Oct after 32.2 °C 52 % 28 km/h 6.0 mm Low 6
26 Oct after 33.4 °C 55 % 37 km/h 11.5 mm Very low 2
27 Oct after 37.2 °C 36 % 50 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17
28 Oct after 36.2 °C 41 % 52 km/h 3.8 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Oct 2023
After · 31 Oct 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 19 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 101 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak101 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10144 µg/m³
Optical depth2.01
161718192021222324252627
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 239Every 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 18 October 2023 and 24 October 2023: 7 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 5,247 hectares (52.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (5,222 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very 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.