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Cuiabá fire, 19 August 2021 Cuiabá

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2021, 17:27 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2021 in Cuiabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,992 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 610th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 209 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
7,992ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
19 Aug 2021 – 24 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Aug
2021
Heat detections
284
in a single hotspot: 168 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

192021222324

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
45km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,610 ha in 2017, 823 ha in 2018, 5,748 ha in 2019, 134 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,345 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuiabá where it started
    8,038 ha reached on 19 Aug
    2.4 %

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)
19 Aug 37.2 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 Aug 36.4 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Aug 36.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Aug 37.7 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Aug 38.4 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Aug 38.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Aug after 39.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Aug after 32.6 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug after 34.9 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Aug after 36.3 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Aug after 33.4 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
30 Aug after 36.0 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Aug after 37.8 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept after 38.4 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept after 38.0 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Sept after 32.6 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2021
After · 31 Aug 2021

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 · 284Every 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 19 August 2021 and 24 August 2021: 6 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 7,992 hectares (79.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuiabá (8,038 ha, 2.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.