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Cotriguaçu fire, September 2020 Cotriguaçu

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2020, 17:41 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2020 in Cotriguaçu, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,378 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1732th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 810 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
3,378ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
3 Sept 2020 – 15 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Sept
2020
Heat detections
172
in a single hotspot: 175 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3567891011141516

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high
34km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 20 Sept.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,948 ha in 2016, 1,717 ha in 2017, 498 ha in 2018, 1,289 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,726 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cotriguaçu 11,011 inhabitants where it started
    3,395 ha reached on 3 Sept
    0.4 %

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 Sept 37.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept 37.1 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Sept 37.9 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept 37.1 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept 38.7 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Sept 38.6 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Sept 36.2 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Sept 36.2 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Sept 35.3 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept 35.1 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Sept 37.2 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Sept 36.2 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Sept 37.7 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Sept after 35.7 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 34.8 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept after 35.1 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
19 Sept after 36.3 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
20 Sept after 33.8 °C 48 % 24 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 27 Aug 2020
After · 22 Sept 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 172Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cotriguaçu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2020 and 15 September 2020: 13 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 3,378 hectares (33.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cotriguaçu (3,395 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 193.

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.