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Cuiabá fire, July 2020 Cuiabá

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2020, 17:20 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2020 in Cuiabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,154 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 839th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 395 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
6,154ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
18 Jul 2020 – 1 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2020
Heat detections
230
in a single hotspot: 164 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul1 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
43km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,358 ha in 2018, 151 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuiabá where it started
    6,188 ha reached on 18 Jul
    1.9 %

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 Jul 34.8 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jul 34.0 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Jul 33.4 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Jul 33.2 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Jul 33.9 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jul 34.4 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul 34.6 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jul 28.1 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jul 32.5 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul 33.9 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul 33.9 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Jul 30.4 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Jul 30.5 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Jul 34.3 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Aug 34.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug after 33.6 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Aug after 34.1 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug after 34.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug after 33.7 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Aug after 33.9 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Aug after 33.4 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Aug after 33.9 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Aug after 33.9 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Aug after 34.6 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Aug after 35.5 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2020
After · 8 Aug 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 · 230Every 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 18 July 2020 and 1 August 2020: 15 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 6,154 hectares (61.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuiabá (6,188 ha, 1.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.