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Cuiabá fire, September 2022 Cuiabá

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2022, 05:32 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2022 in Cuiabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,928 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1445th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 429 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Burnt area
3,928ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
4 Sept 2022 – 10 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2022
Heat detections
92
in a single hotspot: 94 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

4578910

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 15 Sept.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,263 ha in 2017, 2,651 ha in 2019, 2,975 ha in 2020, 254 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,899 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuiabá where it started
    3,952 ha reached on 4 Sept
    1.2 %

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)
1 Sept 37.7 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Sept 37.5 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Sept 31.0 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Sept 31.0 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Sept 32.9 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Sept 34.9 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Sept 38.3 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Sept 36.7 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept 37.8 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Sept 33.7 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Sept after 35.8 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Sept after 38.0 °C 25 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept after 37.5 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Sept after 31.8 °C 44 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 37
15 Sept after 25.1 °C 61 % 35 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2022
After · 17 Sept 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 9 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 99 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 77: 5.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak99 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10142 µg/m³
Optical depth1.48
2345678910111213
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 92Every 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 4 September 2022 and 10 September 2022: 7 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 3,928 hectares (39.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuiabá (3,952 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 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
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.