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Cuiabá fire, 10 September 2020 Cuiabá

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2020, 05:44 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2020 in Cuiabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,565 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 965th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 450 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
5,565ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
10 Sept 2020 – 14 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Sept
2020
Heat detections
141
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
40km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,452 ha in 2017, 3,240 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,782 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuiabá where it started
    5,598 ha reached on 10 Sept
    1.7 %

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)
10 Sept 40.0 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept 39.6 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Sept 39.5 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Sept 40.0 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Sept 38.5 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
15 Sept after 36.7 °C 21 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Sept after 38.6 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Sept after 38.2 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept after 38.4 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 38.8 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept after 32.5 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Sept after 32.9 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Sept after 31.5 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm High 29
23 Sept after 34.5 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
24 Sept after 38.6 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2020
After · 21 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 · 141Every 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 10 September 2020 and 14 September 2020: 5 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 5,565 hectares (55.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuiabá (5,598 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, class Extreme.
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.