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Cuiabá fire, August 2023 Cuiabá

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2023, 05:33 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2023 in Cuiabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,822 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1505th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 284 in Brazil in 2023, of 431.

Burnt area
3,822ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
7 Aug 2023 – 12 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Aug
2023
Heat detections
106
in a single hotspot: 143 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

789101112

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
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,422 ha in 2017, 924 ha in 2018, 2,044 ha in 2019, 8 ha in 2020, 2,883 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,271 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuiabá where it started
    3,844 ha reached on 5 Aug
    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)
5 Aug 36.0 °C 23 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Aug 36.8 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Aug 36.9 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 36.6 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 37.1 °C 23 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Aug 38.1 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Aug 36.9 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Aug 36.2 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug after 29.0 °C 53 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug after 31.2 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
15 Aug after 35.4 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 35.8 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Aug after 36.1 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Aug after 36.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Aug after 28.9 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug after 36.3 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 36.6 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug after 38.3 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug after 38.4 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Aug after 37.7 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug after 35.0 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
26 Aug after 32.0 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Aug after 32.3 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2023
After · 19 Aug 2023

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 11 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1041 µg/m³
Optical depth0.40
56789101112131415
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 · 106Every 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 7 August 2023 and 12 August 2023: 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 3,822 hectares (38.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuiabá (3,844 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.