How long did the Lagoa do Mato fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 September 2020 to 9 October 2020 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 September 2020 to 5 October 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,574 hectares (35.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lagoa do Mato (3,100 ha, 2.0 %); Passagem Franca (437 ha, 0.3 %); Sucupira do Riachão (62 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2020-09-24 → 2020-10-09

Lagoa do Mato fire, September 2020 Lagoa do Mato, Passagem Franca, Sucupira do Riachão

Out · last detection 9 Oct 2020, 04:32 UTC

The fire started on 24 September 2020 in Lagoa do Mato, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,574 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 427th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 608 with a page). Number 753 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lagoa do Mato · 2018 Barão de Grajaú · 2025 Passagem Franca · 2023 São João dos Patos · 2024

Burnt area: 3,574ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 24 Sept 2020 – 9 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 24 Sept; 2020
Heat detections: 136; in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 65MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Sept9 Oct

Play back 9 Oct 2020

How it evolved, day by day

24 Sept 27 Sept 1 Oct 2 Oct 4 Oct 7 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

37°high

41km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 308 ha in 2016, 1,261 ha in 2017, 1,719 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,733 ha that had burned before.

1,599 ha Lagoa do Mato fire, August 2018 8,220 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 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

Lagoa do Mato 10,572 inhabitants where it started

3,100 ha reached on 24 Sept

2.0 %
Passagem Franca 17,220 inhabitants

437 ha reached on 24 Sept

0.3 %
Sucupira do Riachão 4,985 inhabitants

62 ha

0.1 %

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)
24 Sept	36.0 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
25 Sept	35.3 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
26 Sept	34.2 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
27 Sept	35.5 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Sept	36.6 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
29 Sept	35.9 °C	33 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
30 Sept	36.1 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Oct	35.8 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
2 Oct	36.2 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
3 Oct	36.1 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Oct	37.3 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Oct	36.1 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Oct	36.3 °C	25 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
7 Oct	36.0 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
8 Oct	37.2 °C	26 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Oct	35.9 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
10 Oct after	35.8 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
11 Oct after	34.0 °C	34 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
12 Oct after	33.9 °C	39 %	22 km/h	0.5 mm	High 30
13 Oct after	34.8 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
14 Oct after	34.9 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
15 Oct after	36.8 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
16 Oct after	36.3 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
17 Oct after	35.9 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
18 Oct after	34.7 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
19 Oct after	35.2 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Sept 2020

After · 16 Oct 2020

Before After

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 · 136Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lagoa do Mato fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 September 2020 to 9 October 2020 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 September 2020 to 5 October 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,574 hectares (35.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lagoa do Mato (3,100 ha, 2.0 %); Passagem Franca (437 ha, 0.3 %); Sucupira do Riachão (62 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 5 October 2020 → 9 October 2020.
25 October 2026 Start date: 26 September 2020 → 24 September 2020.

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 26 September 2020 to 5 October 2020. 136 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.

Where it burned