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Cuiabá fire, September 2021 Cuiabá

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2021, 05:51 UTC

The fire started on 18 September 2021 in Cuiabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,004 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1995th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 813 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
3,004ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
18 Sept 2021 – 22 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Sept
2021
Heat detections
95
in a single hotspot: 174 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Sept22 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
35km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 26 Sept.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 642 ha in 2017, 1,398 ha in 2019, 145 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,768 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuiabá where it started
    3,022 ha reached on 18 Sept
    0.9 %

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 Sept 39.0 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Sept 39.5 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Sept 40.6 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Sept 40.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Sept 35.6 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Sept after 38.0 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Sept after 35.5 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Sept after 37.4 °C 35 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Sept after 38.1 °C 35 % 35 km/h 3.6 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Sept 2021
After · 29 Sept 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 · 95Every 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 September 2021 and 22 September 2021: 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 3,004 hectares (30.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuiabá (3,022 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.