Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Cotriguaçu fire, 30 August 2022 Cotriguaçu, Colniza

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2022, 04:53 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2022 in Cotriguaçu, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,858 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 904th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 240 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
5,858ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
30 Aug 2022 – 12 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2022
Heat detections
457
in a single hotspot: 304 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3031123456789101112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
37km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.8 mm on 18 Sept.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,539 ha in 2016, 1,045 ha in 2017, 1,751 ha in 2018, 1,394 ha in 2019, 2,921 ha in 2020, 1,267 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,475 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cotriguaçu 11,011 inhabitants where it started
    5,139 ha reached on 23 Aug
    0.5 %
  2. Colniza
    749 ha reached on 2 Sept
    0.0 %

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)
23 Aug 34.6 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Aug 34.4 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Aug 34.0 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Aug 33.5 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
27 Aug 33.3 °C 48 % 24 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 14
28 Aug 33.6 °C 49 % 20 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18
29 Aug 33.7 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Aug 35.2 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Aug 34.9 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Sept 34.3 °C 38 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Sept 34.4 °C 37 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Sept 36.3 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept 35.4 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Sept 35.3 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Sept 31.8 °C 51 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
7 Sept 33.2 °C 50 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
8 Sept 33.3 °C 54 % 27 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18
9 Sept 34.3 °C 50 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 17
10 Sept 33.2 °C 49 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
11 Sept 34.2 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
12 Sept 33.7 °C 48 % 21 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17
13 Sept after 32.5 °C 50 % 20 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
14 Sept after 35.5 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Sept after 33.1 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
16 Sept after 34.8 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
17 Sept after 34.5 °C 45 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
18 Sept after 27.1 °C 81 % 24 km/h 12.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2022
After · 19 Sept 2022

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 · Copernicus

On 6 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 190 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 118: 7.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak190 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM10271 µg/m³
Optical depth2.37
28293031123456789101112131415
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 457Every 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 30 August 2022 and 12 September 2022: 14 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 5,858 hectares (58.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cotriguaçu (5,139 ha, 0.5 %); Colniza (749 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.