Skip to content
worldfires
en
BR · Brazil · →

Gaúcha do Norte fire, 26 August 2020 Gaúcha do Norte

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2020, 18:04 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2020 in Gaúcha do Norte, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 33,577 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 87th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 41 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gaúcha do Norte · 2016Gaúcha do Norte · 2016Gaúcha do Norte · 2016Gaúcha do Norte · 2024

Burnt area
33,577ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
26 Aug 2020 – 20 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Aug
2020
Heat detections
1,954
in a single hotspot: 742 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.8GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug20 Sept
20 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

26 Aug 2020 · 10 MW · 4 27 Aug 2020 · 60 MW · 11 28 Aug 2020 · 86 MW · 13 29 Aug 2020 · 41 MW · 5 30 Aug 2020 · 6 MW · 1 1 Sept 2020 · 94 MW · 13 2 Sept 2020 · 136 MW · 19 3 Sept 2020 · 9 MW · 2 5 Sept 2020 · 332 MW · 16 6 Sept 2020 · 523 MW · 85 7 Sept 2020 · 1,701 MW · 75 8 Sept 2020 · 1,921 MW · 94 9 Sept 2020 · 1,806 MW · 104 10 Sept 2020 · 3,070 MW · 170 11 Sept 2020 · 2,327 MW · 286 12 Sept 2020 · 6,890 MW · 282 13 Sept 2020 · 7,446 MW · 181 14 Sept 2020 · 2,992 MW · 128 15 Sept 2020 · 1,353 MW · 73 16 Sept 2020 · 9,780 MW · 139 17 Sept 2020 · 769 MW · 48 18 Sept 2020 · 543 MW · 130 19 Sept 2020 · 640 MW · 66 20 Sept 2020 · 43 MW · 9
26 Aug 30 Aug 5 Sept 9 Sept 13 Sept 16 Sept 17 Sept

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
46km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 24,254 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,616 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 21% of the area of London (336 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Gaúcha do Norte 8,642 inhabitants where it started
    33,786 ha reached on 26 Aug
    2.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
21 Aug 30.9 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug 32.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Aug 34.5 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug 35.6 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug 34.7 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
26 Aug 35.2 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug 37.4 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Aug 36.7 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Aug 36.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Aug 36.5 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Aug 37.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Sept 37.2 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Sept 36.3 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Sept 35.6 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Sept 37.5 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Sept 36.8 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Sept 37.4 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Sept 37.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Sept 37.6 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Sept 37.8 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Sept 38.0 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Sept 37.4 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Sept 38.0 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Sept 36.7 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Sept 36.9 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Sept 36.1 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Sept 36.9 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Sept 37.3 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept 38.3 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Sept 37.6 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept 37.4 °C 29 % 31 km/h 3.1 mm High 25
21 Sept after 33.3 °C 42 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
22 Sept after 31.5 °C 51 % 30 km/h 12.7 mm Very low 4
23 Sept after 33.7 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 15
24 Sept after 34.9 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Sept after 34.7 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Sept after 33.3 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
27 Sept after 34.5 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
28 Sept after 36.6 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Sept after 38.5 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Sept after 38.1 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Oct after 36.2 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Oct after 36.2 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Oct after 38.2 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Oct after 37.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Oct after 38.1 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Oct after 36.8 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Oct after 36.2 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2020
After · 27 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 · 1,954Every 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 Gaúcha do Norte fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2020 and 20 September 2020: 26 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 33,577 hectares (335.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gaúcha do Norte (33,786 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,954 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.