Corumbá fire, 20 October 2023 Corumbá
The fire started on 20 October 2023 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,049 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 242th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 123 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.
- Burnt area
- 6,049ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 20 Oct 2023 – 22 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 173
- in a single hotspot: 242 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.0GW
- sum of detected power
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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.6 mm on 25 Oct.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,395 ha in 2016, 411 ha in 2017, 3,688 ha in 2019, 3,456 ha in 2020, 2,828 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,514 ha that had burned before.
- 2,440 ha Corumbá fire, August 2020 24,201 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,647 ha Corumbá fire, January 2019 11,380 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,474 ha Corumbá fire, August 2021 9,223 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,353 ha Corumbá fire, August 2021 5,111 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 516 ha Corumbá fire, September 2016 28,210 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 491 ha Corumbá fire, September 2019 13,904 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 468 ha Corumbá fire, July 2019 3,551 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 407 ha Corumbá fire, September 2016 28,516 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
6,131 ha reached on 20 Oct0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Oct | 36.6 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 21 Oct | 39.8 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Oct | 40.8 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Oct after | 41.7 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Oct after | 35.8 °C | 41 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Oct after | 34.2 °C | 49 % | 32 km/h | 9.6 mm | Very low 4 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 25 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 67: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 173Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Corumbá fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2023 and 22 October 2023: 3 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 6,049 hectares (60.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Corumbá (6,131 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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
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.