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Guiratinga fire, October 2020 Guiratinga, Pedra Preta, São José do Povo

Out · last detection 4 Oct 2020, 17:01 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2020 in Guiratinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,825 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 474th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 207 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
9,825ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
1 Oct 2020 – 4 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
1 Oct
2020
Heat detections
457
in a single hotspot: 744 MW
Danger at start
63
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct4 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1234

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
46km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 18 Oct.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 152 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Guiratinga 10,966 inhabitants where it started
    8,911 ha reached on 1 Oct
    1.8 %
  2. Pedra Preta 18,066 inhabitants
    869 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.2 %
  3. São José do Povo 2,875 inhabitants
    103 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.2 %

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 Oct 42.4 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
2 Oct 41.2 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Oct 41.9 °C 6 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Oct 43.1 °C 4 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Oct after 43.1 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Oct after 42.7 °C 7 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Oct after 42.0 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Oct after 43.1 °C 7 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Oct after 42.8 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Oct after 40.6 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Oct after 35.1 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.9 mm High 30
12 Oct after 36.4 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
13 Oct after 39.2 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Oct after 39.9 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Oct after 36.6 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 36
16 Oct after 30.8 °C 50 % 22 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 19
17 Oct after 38.1 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
18 Oct after 37.6 °C 28 % 27 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 · 24 Sept 2020
After · 11 Oct 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 · 457Every 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 Guiratinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 October 2020 and 4 October 2020: 4 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 9,825 hectares (98.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Guiratinga (8,911 ha, 1.8 %); Pedra Preta (869 ha, 0.2 %); São José do Povo (103 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 43.1 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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

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.