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Cuiabá fire, 24 August 2019 Cuiabá

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2019, 05:32 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2019 in Cuiabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,970 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1097th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 475 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
4,970ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
24 Aug 2019 – 1 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Aug
2019
Heat detections
184
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

24262829303112

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
36km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,942 ha in 2016, 43 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuiabá where it started
    4,994 ha reached on 24 Aug
    1.5 %

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)
18 Aug 33.7 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug 28.8 °C 55 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
20 Aug 30.1 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Aug 33.4 °C 46 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Aug 35.4 °C 39 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Aug 34.0 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Aug 35.3 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Aug 35.5 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug 34.0 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Aug 27.5 °C 55 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Aug 34.4 °C 33 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Aug 34.4 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Aug 36.6 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug 36.1 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Sept 32.1 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Sept after 32.9 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Sept after 35.7 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
4 Sept after 36.8 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Sept after 35.6 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept after 38.6 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Sept after 37.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
8 Sept after 37.0 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Sept after 37.4 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Sept after 37.2 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Sept after 37.8 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Sept after 36.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept after 30.5 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Sept after 36.0 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Sept after 38.6 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Sept after 38.6 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2019
After · 8 Sept 2019

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 · 184Every 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 Cuiabá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2019 and 1 September 2019: 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 4,970 hectares (49.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuiabá (4,994 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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
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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.