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Mateiros fire, August 2020 Mateiros

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2020, 16:43 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2020 in Mateiros, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,146 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1165th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 892 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
3,146ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
10 Aug 2020 – 18 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Aug
2020
Heat detections
83
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
604MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718

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
52km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 448 ha in 2017, 949 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mateiros 2,748 inhabitants where it started
    3,168 ha reached on 10 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
10 Aug 32.0 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Aug 32.9 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 32.5 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Aug 33.2 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Aug 33.3 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Aug 33.8 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug 35.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug 35.4 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Aug 34.5 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Aug after 34.0 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Aug after 35.1 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug after 36.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Aug after 35.8 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Aug after 34.4 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Aug after 32.7 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Aug after 35.0 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug after 34.2 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Aug after 34.7 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Aug after 34.1 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2020
After · 25 Aug 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 · 83Every 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 Mateiros fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2020 and 18 August 2020: 9 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 3,146 hectares (31.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mateiros (3,168 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.