Corumbá fire, December 2023 Corumbá
The fire started on 23 December 2023 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,265 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 465th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 381 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.
- Burnt area
- 3,265ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 23 Dec 2023 – 31 Dec 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Dec
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 183
- in a single hotspot: 272 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.5GW
- 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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.7 mm on 11 Jan.
This area had burned before
70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 156 ha in 2018, 1,532 ha in 2020, 1,747 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,277 ha that had burned before.
- 1,747 ha Corumbá fire, September 2021 75,860 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,532 ha Corumbá fire, September 2020 51,403 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 156 ha Corumbá fire, September 2018 3,684 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
3,267 ha reached on 19 Dec0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Dec | 36.1 °C | 43 % | 32 km/h | 4.1 mm | Low 5 |
| 20 Dec | 35.0 °C | 48 % | 25 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 21 Dec | 33.4 °C | 55 % | 24 km/h | 8.1 mm | Very low 1 |
| 22 Dec | 32.2 °C | 57 % | 42 km/h | 3.6 mm | Very low 2 |
| 23 Dec | 34.0 °C | 51 % | 38 km/h | 1.2 mm | Low 6 |
| 24 Dec | 35.4 °C | 43 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 25 Dec | 38.6 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 26 Dec | 31.3 °C | 59 % | 31 km/h | 6.7 mm | Very low 1 |
| 27 Dec | 34.9 °C | 50 % | 19 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 28 Dec | 38.2 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 29 Dec | 38.1 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 30 Dec | 32.6 °C | 58 % | 30 km/h | 11.8 mm | Very low 1 |
| 31 Dec | 33.4 °C | 52 % | 28 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very low 4 |
| 1 Jan after | 30.8 °C | 63 % | 30 km/h | 4.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 2 Jan after | 31.2 °C | 66 % | 28 km/h | 10.1 mm | Very low 0 |
| 3 Jan after | 32.0 °C | 63 % | 23 km/h | 4.6 mm | Very low 0 |
| 4 Jan after | 33.9 °C | 51 % | 24 km/h | 1.1 mm | Very low 1 |
| 5 Jan after | 34.8 °C | 50 % | 19 km/h | 2.3 mm | Very low 1 |
| 6 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 44 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 6 |
| 7 Jan after | 37.3 °C | 40 % | 30 km/h | 0.6 mm | Low 9 |
| 8 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 10 |
| 9 Jan after | 37.7 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 10 Jan after | 37.2 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 11 Jan after | 33.0 °C | 58 % | 31 km/h | 16.7 mm | Very low 1 |
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 31 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 183Every 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 23 December 2023 and 31 December 2023: 9 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 3,265 hectares (32.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Corumbá (3,267 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
- 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.