Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Macaubal fire, September 2020 Planalto, União Paulista, Macaubal

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2020, 17:56 UTC

The fire started on 29 September 2020 in Macaubal, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,072 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 90th largest in São Paulo since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 920 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
3,072ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
29 Sept 2020 – 2 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
29 Sept
2020
Heat detections
82
in a single hotspot: 174 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Sept2 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

29301

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
41km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 9 Oct.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 301 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Planalto 4,389 inhabitants
    1,596 ha reached on 30 Sept
    5.5 %
  2. União Paulista 1,603 inhabitants
    788 ha reached on 30 Sept
    9.9 %
  3. Macaubal 7,481 inhabitants where it started
    703 ha reached on 29 Sept
    2.8 %

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)
29 Sept 39.7 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Sept 40.7 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 Oct 40.0 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
2 Oct 40.5 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
3 Oct after 41.0 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
4 Oct after 39.5 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
5 Oct after 40.9 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
6 Oct after 40.7 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
7 Oct after 41.6 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
8 Oct after 36.1 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Oct after 36.5 °C 33 % 53 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Sept 2020
After · 9 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 · 82Every 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 Macaubal fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 September 2020 and 2 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 3,072 hectares (30.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Planalto (1,596 ha, 5.5 %); União Paulista (788 ha, 9.9 %); Macaubal (703 ha, 2.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 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.