Corumbá fire, 3 August 2024 Corumbá
The fire started on 3 August 2024 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,469 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 111th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 271 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
- Burnt area
- 11,469ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 3 Aug 2024 – 7 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 470
- in a single hotspot: 572 MW
- Danger at start
- 65
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 22.1GW
- 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 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.3 mm on 8 Aug.
This area had burned before
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,949 ha in 2017, 8,575 ha in 2019, 4,844 ha in 2020, 408 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,127 ha that had burned before.
- 5,195 ha Corumbá fire, September 2019 35,314 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,087 ha Corumbá fire, September 2020 98,626 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,949 ha Corumbá fire, October 2017 5,746 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,629 ha Corumbá fire, October 2019 3,111 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 89 ha Corumbá fire, July 2019 3,434 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
11,559 ha reached on 3 Aug0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Aug | 37.2 °C | 20 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 4 Aug | 36.7 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 5 Aug | 37.1 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 6 Aug | 35.7 °C | 17 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 7 Aug | 36.3 °C | 22 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 8 Aug after | 24.0 °C | 75 % | 37 km/h | 7.3 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 10 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 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 · 470Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 35,314 haCorumbá7 September 2019 · 14 days · 12 km away
- 98,626 haCorumbá24 September 2020 · 24 days · 15 km away
- 74,804 haCorumbá21 June 2024 · 16 days · 30 km away
- 92,935 haCorumbá23 October 2019 · 16 days · 36 km away
- 44,147 haCorumbá7 September 2021 · 25 days · 38 km away
- 28,640 haCorumbáMay 2022 · 19 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Corumbá fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2024 and 7 August 2024: 5 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 11,469 hectares (114.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Corumbá (11,559 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
- 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.