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Guapé fire, September 2020 Carmo do Rio Claro, Guapé, Ilicínea

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2020, 15:50 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2020 in Guapé, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,409 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 167th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 798 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
3,409ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
6 Sept 2020 – 10 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
6 Sept
2020
Heat detections
102
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6781011

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
38km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 19 Sept.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,230 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Carmo do Rio Claro 20,954 inhabitants
    1,859 ha reached on 7 Sept
    1.7 %
  2. Guapé 13,772 inhabitants where it started
    893 ha reached on 6 Sept
    1.0 %
  3. Ilicínea 12,741 inhabitants
    674 ha reached on 6 Sept
    1.8 %

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 25.8 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Sept 23.7 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Sept 25.6 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept 27.8 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Sept 27.8 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 27.2 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 28.1 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Sept 28.9 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Sept 29.1 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Sept 29.6 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Sept after 29.9 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Sept after 29.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Sept after 27.8 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Sept after 27.4 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Sept after 27.0 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept after 26.9 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Sept after 29.5 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept after 30.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Sept after 29.7 °C 25 % 32 km/h 1.2 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Aug 2020
After · 17 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 · 102Every 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 Guapé fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2020 and 10 September 2020: 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 3,409 hectares (34.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Carmo do Rio Claro (1,859 ha, 1.7 %); Guapé (893 ha, 1.0 %); Ilicínea (674 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.