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Monte do Carmo fire, September 2020 Monte do Carmo

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2020, 16:43 UTC

The fire started on 23 September 2020 in Monte do Carmo, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,552 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 331th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 296 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
7,552ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
23 Sept 2020 – 5 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Sept
2020
Heat detections
230
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Sept5 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2324252728293012345

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
44km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 10 Oct.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,486 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Monte do Carmo 5,694 inhabitants where it started
    7,604 ha reached on 23 Sept
    2.1 %

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)
23 Sept 33.2 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
24 Sept 34.4 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Sept 32.6 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Sept 33.2 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Sept 35.6 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Sept 36.8 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Sept 36.5 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Sept 36.1 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Oct 36.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Oct 36.6 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Oct 37.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Oct 38.0 °C 14 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Oct 36.9 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Oct after 37.1 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Oct after 37.9 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Oct after 38.0 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Oct after 36.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Oct after 30.4 °C 43 % 36 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Sept 2020
After · 12 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 · 230Every 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 Monte do Carmo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 September 2020 and 5 October 2020: 13 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 7,552 hectares (75.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Monte do Carmo (7,604 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.