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BR · Brazil · –

Itiquira fire, 24 September 2020 Itiquira, Santo Antônio do Leverger

Out · last detection 13 Oct 2020, 05:00 UTC

The fire started on 24 September 2020 in Itiquira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,223 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 307th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1872 with a page). Number 133 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
13,223ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
24 Sept 2020 – 13 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
24 Sept
2020
Heat detections
551
in a single hotspot: 195 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
408MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Sept13 Oct
13 Oct 2020

How it evolved, day by day

24 Sept 2020 · 8 MW · 1 25 Sept 2020 · 614 MW · 38 26 Sept 2020 · 56 MW · 27 27 Sept 2020 · 1,336 MW · 114 28 Sept 2020 · 769 MW · 97 29 Sept 2020 · 410 MW · 30 30 Sept 2020 · 329 MW · 33 1 Oct 2020 · 226 MW · 28 2 Oct 2020 · 571 MW · 47 3 Oct 2020 · 73 MW · 8 4 Oct 2020 · 165 MW · 10 5 Oct 2020 · 29 MW · 5 6 Oct 2020 · 1,610 MW · 18 7 Oct 2020 · 1,306 MW · 53 8 Oct 2020 · 100 MW · 13 9 Oct 2020 · 32 MW · 7 10 Oct 2020 · 91 MW · 7 11 Oct 2020 · 11 MW · 12 13 Oct 2020 · 7 MW · 3
24 Sept 28 Sept 2 Oct 6 Oct 10 Oct

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
44km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.8 mm on 15 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.4% of the area of London (132 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. Itiquira 12,236 inhabitants where it started
    9,291 ha reached on 24 Sept
    1.1 %
  2. Santo Antônio do Leverger 650,877 inhabitants
    4,010 ha reached on 28 Sept
    0.4 %

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 area1.0 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.0 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (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)
24 Sept 39.7 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Sept 41.1 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Sept 39.4 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
27 Sept 39.3 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
28 Sept 39.6 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Sept 42.0 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
30 Sept 43.1 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
1 Oct 42.7 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
2 Oct 40.9 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
3 Oct 41.7 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Oct 43.1 °C 10 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Oct 42.7 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Oct 42.7 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
7 Oct 41.0 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Oct 42.6 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
9 Oct 41.8 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
10 Oct 40.3 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
11 Oct 35.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
12 Oct 36.2 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
13 Oct 38.9 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 43
14 Oct after 39.9 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Oct after 35.3 °C 38 % 29 km/h 7.8 mm Very high 40

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 44.9, a minimum humidity of 19% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 31.

FWI at the start 44.9
Minimum humidity 19 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Santo Antônio do Leverger fire, October 2024
3,522 ha 5 days FWI 45.3 Min. humidity 24 % 16 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 8.5 mm on 10 Oct.

What happened to them

9 days
median duration
5,544 ha
median area
23 %
went past 10,000 ha
4.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 25 of 31 had it)

It was 2.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 20 days, against 9 days.

Only 6 of its 31 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 31, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.1 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

7.8 mmfirst rain
15 Oct2 days after it ended
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 Oct, and on 15 Oct 7.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 25 of 31, with a median of 4.1 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Sept 2020
After · 20 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 · 551Every 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 Itiquira fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 September 2020 and 13 October 2020: 20 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 13,223 hectares (132.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Itiquira (9,291 ha, 1.1 %); Santo Antônio do Leverger (4,010 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 43.1 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 82, class Very 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 31. Their median duration was 9 days and their median area 5,544 ha; 23 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 6 of its 31 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 31, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.1 mm.

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.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 551 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.