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Marcelândia fire, July 2019 Marcelândia

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2019, 17:09 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2019 in Marcelândia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,209 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 828th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 353 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Marcelândia · 2017Marcelândia · 2022Marcelândia · 2019Marcelândia · 2024

Burnt area
6,209ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
45days
7 Jul 2019 – 20 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Jul
2019
Heat detections
888
in a single hotspot: 207 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Average daily power
366MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul20 Aug
20 Aug 2019

How it evolved, day by day

7 Jul 2019 · 12 MW · 5 8 Jul 2019 · 6 MW · 4 9 Jul 2019 · 14 MW · 2 11 Jul 2019 · 3 MW · 1 13 Jul 2019 · 13 MW · 2 14 Jul 2019 · 43 MW · 2 15 Jul 2019 · 202 MW · 8 16 Jul 2019 · 750 MW · 25 17 Jul 2019 · 839 MW · 45 18 Jul 2019 · 804 MW · 42 19 Jul 2019 · 717 MW · 49 20 Jul 2019 · 401 MW · 23 21 Jul 2019 · 124 MW · 19 22 Jul 2019 · 346 MW · 23 23 Jul 2019 · 143 MW · 19 24 Jul 2019 · 821 MW · 39 25 Jul 2019 · 286 MW · 32 26 Jul 2019 · 219 MW · 21 27 Jul 2019 · 338 MW · 32 28 Jul 2019 · 218 MW · 25 29 Jul 2019 · 602 MW · 15 30 Jul 2019 · 171 MW · 18 31 Jul 2019 · 1,452 MW · 43 1 Aug 2019 · 967 MW · 38 2 Aug 2019 · 40 MW · 26 3 Aug 2019 · 58 MW · 20 4 Aug 2019 · 65 MW · 10 5 Aug 2019 · 28 MW · 2 6 Aug 2019 · 152 MW · 20 7 Aug 2019 · 477 MW · 34 8 Aug 2019 · 790 MW · 60 9 Aug 2019 · 1,614 MW · 31 10 Aug 2019 · 729 MW · 32 11 Aug 2019 · 952 MW · 49 12 Aug 2019 · 909 MW · 24 13 Aug 2019 · 177 MW · 21 14 Aug 2019 · 12 MW · 6 15 Aug 2019 · 54 MW · 2 16 Aug 2019 · 63 MW · 4 17 Aug 2019 · 10 MW · 2 18 Aug 2019 · 23 MW · 4 19 Aug 2019 · 45 MW · 8 20 Aug 2019 · 37 MW · 1
7 Jul 16 Jul 23 Jul 30 Jul 6 Aug 9 Aug 13 Aug 20 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
43km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,536 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.9% of the area of London (62 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. Marcelândia 11,396 inhabitants where it started
    6,247 ha reached on 7 Jul
    0.5 %

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 area0.39 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.39 hectares of 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)
7 Jul 29.5 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Jul 31.7 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Jul 29.7 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
10 Jul 32.0 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Jul 32.6 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Jul 32.3 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Jul 32.6 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Jul 33.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Jul 33.4 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Jul 33.7 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jul 33.9 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Jul 33.6 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jul 33.3 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jul 30.9 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Jul 31.2 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Jul 32.5 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jul 31.7 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jul 32.3 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jul 32.7 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jul 32.7 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul 32.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jul 32.0 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul 33.0 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul 34.6 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Jul 34.0 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug 34.1 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug 34.9 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Aug 29.8 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Aug 29.4 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Aug 32.7 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Aug 33.6 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Aug 32.5 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Aug 33.1 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Aug 33.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug 33.5 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Aug 34.1 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 34.0 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Aug 34.8 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Aug 33.3 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Aug 34.9 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Aug 34.3 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Aug 33.9 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug 34.0 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Aug 34.9 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 35.6 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug after 35.3 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug after 36.5 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug after 35.8 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug after 34.6 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
25 Aug after 33.9 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Aug after 34.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug after 35.1 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Aug after 35.2 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Aug after 35.3 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Aug after 35.0 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2019
After · 27 Aug 2019

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 · 888Every 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 Marcelândia fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 July 2019 to 20 August 2019 (45 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 July 2019 to 19 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,209 hectares (62.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Marcelândia (6,247 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 19 August 2019 → 20 August 2019.
  2. Start date: 13 July 2019 → 7 July 2019.

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.

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 July 2019 to 19 August 2019. 888 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.