Corumbá fire, 28 August 2024 Corumbá
The fire started on 28 August 2024 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,147 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 61th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 155 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
- Burnt area
- 19,147ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 28 Aug 2024 – 3 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 28 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 653
- in a single hotspot: 321 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 16.6GW
- 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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 19.5 mm on 14 Sept.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,869 ha in 2016, 977 ha in 2017, 16,963 ha in 2019, 13,251 ha in 2020, 8,346 ha in 2021, 125 ha in 2022, 2,948 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,664 ha that had burned before.
- 8,909 ha Corumbá fire, August 2020 24,201 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,051 ha Corumbá fire, August 2021 9,126 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,084 ha Corumbá fire, September 2016 28,516 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,560 ha Corumbá fire, September 2019 13,904 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,909 ha Corumbá fire, August 2021 5,111 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,223 ha Corumbá fire, August 2021 9,223 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 673 ha Corumbá fire, October 2023 6,049 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 606 ha Corumbá fire, January 2019 11,380 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
19,421 ha reached on 28 Aug0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Aug | 33.5 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 29 Aug | 36.8 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 30 Aug | 37.2 °C | 26 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 31 Aug | 32.3 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Sept | 26.1 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Sept | 32.0 °C | 35 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 3 Sept | 38.3 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 4 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 32 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Sept after | 24.9 °C | 39 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Sept after | 38.7 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Sept after | 39.7 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 9 Sept after | 39.0 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 10 Sept after | 38.3 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 11 Sept after | 39.6 °C | 19 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 12 Sept after | 30.6 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 38 |
| 14 Sept after | 26.3 °C | 68 % | 41 km/h | 19.5 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 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 164 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 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 · 653Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 24,201 haCorumbá6 August 2020 · 10 days · 11 km away
- 28,516 haCorumbá13 September 2016 · 6 days · 15 km away
- 21,795 haCorumbá27 August 2024 · 8 days · 23 km away
- 28,210 haCorumbá15 September 2016 · 9 days · 26 km away
- 24,736 haCorumbá9 September 2024 · 5 days · 33 km away
- 104,351 haPorto Murtinho12 August 2024 · 33 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Corumbá fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 August 2024 and 3 September 2024: 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 19,147 hectares (191.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Corumbá (19,421 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.