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Mococa fire, September 2021 Mococa, São José do Rio Pardo

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2021, 16:22 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2021 in Mococa, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,230 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 189th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 734 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
3,230ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
20 Sept 2021 – 23 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
20 Sept
2021
Heat detections
130
in a single hotspot: 264 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

23 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept23 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

20 Sept 2021 · 3,599 MW · 61 21 Sept 2021 · 968 MW · 50 22 Sept 2021 · 30 MW · 15 23 Sept 2021 · 6 MW · 4
20 Sept 21 Sept 22 Sept 23 Sept

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
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mococa 67,681 inhabitants where it started
    2,856 ha reached on 20 Sept
    3.3 %
  2. São José do Rio Pardo 52,205 inhabitants
    393 ha reached on 20 Sept
    0.9 %

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)
20 Sept 36.4 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Sept 37.4 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Sept 29.5 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Sept 30.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Sept after 32.8 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Sept after 30.8 °C 34 % 29 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Sept 2021
After · 30 Sept 2021

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 · 130Every 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 Mococa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 September 2021 and 23 September 2021: 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 3,230 hectares (32.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mococa (2,856 ha, 3.3 %); São José do Rio Pardo (393 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.