Corumbá fire, 4 November 2023 Miranda, Aquidauana, Corumbá
The fire started on 4 November 2023 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 124,691 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
It is the 4th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 2 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 124,691ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 4 Nov 2023 – 23 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Nov
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 5,505
- in a single hotspot: 674 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 7.1GW
- 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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.7 mm on 24 Nov.
This area had burned before
67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,056 ha in 2017, 44,058 ha in 2019, 21,105 ha in 2020, 32,843 ha in 2021, 9,909 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 83,193 ha that had burned before.
- 39,489 ha Corumbá fire, October 2019 92,935 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,357 ha Aquidauana fire, September 2020 16,478 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,337 ha Corumbá fire, September 2021 17,716 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,923 ha Corumbá fire, December 2020 6,183 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,449 ha Corumbá fire, October 2021 13,315 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,324 ha Corumbá fire, May 2022 28,640 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,120 ha Aquidauana fire, October 2021 52,957 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,319 ha Aquidauana fire, September 2017 6,540 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
-
Miranda 25,536 inhabitants66,328 ha reached on 13 Nov12 %
-
Aquidauana 46,803 inhabitants51,216 ha reached on 11 Nov3.0 %
-
7,736 ha reached on 4 Nov0.1 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.58 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Nov | 30.3 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 5 Nov | 35.1 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 6 Nov | 39.3 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 7 Nov | 41.1 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 8 Nov | 40.9 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Nov | 37.7 °C | 39 % | 42 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 10 Nov | 39.9 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Nov | 40.9 °C | 24 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 12 Nov | 40.6 °C | 28 % | 54 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Nov | 40.7 °C | 26 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Nov | 40.1 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Nov | 40.3 °C | 26 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 16 Nov | 41.2 °C | 23 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Nov | 41.3 °C | 20 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 18 Nov | 41.4 °C | 21 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Nov | 39.1 °C | 34 % | 47 km/h | 16.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 20 Nov | 32.3 °C | 54 % | 26 km/h | 6.9 mm | Very low 2 |
| 21 Nov | 35.0 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.6 mm | Low 10 |
| 22 Nov | 37.4 °C | 37 % | 45 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 23 Nov | 34.3 °C | 53 % | 37 km/h | 8.8 mm | Very low 2 |
| 24 Nov after | 28.5 °C | 72 % | 20 km/h | 5.7 mm | Very low 0 |
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 19 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 464 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 158: 11 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 · 5,505Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 92,935 haCorumbá23 October 2019 · 22 days · 26 km away
- 42,764 haAquidauanaOctober 2024 · 13 days · 26 km away
- 52,957 haAquidauana17 October 2021 · 25 days · 29 km away
- 28,640 haCorumbáMay 2022 · 19 days · 31 km away
- 54,685 haAquidauana9 September 2019 · 23 days · 38 km away
- 276,504 haMirandaJuly 2024 · 24 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Corumbá fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 November 2023 and 23 November 2023: 20 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 124,691 hectares (1,246.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Miranda (66,328 ha, 12 %); Aquidauana (51,216 ha, 3.0 %); Corumbá (7,736 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 5,505 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 2025, 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.