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Nova Lacerda fire, August 2020 Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade, Nova Lacerda

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2020, 17:01 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2020 in Nova Lacerda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,139 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 361th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 149 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade · 2017Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade · 2019Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade · 2019Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade · 2024

Burnt area
12,139ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
27 Aug 2020 – 18 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
27 Aug
2020
Heat detections
435
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
117MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug18 Sept
18 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

27 Aug 2020 · 58 MW · 11 28 Aug 2020 · 9 MW · 5 30 Aug 2020 · 4 MW · 2 31 Aug 2020 · 1 MW · 1 2 Sept 2020 · 5 MW · 1 3 Sept 2020 · 274 MW · 43 4 Sept 2020 · 661 MW · 65 5 Sept 2020 · 152 MW · 40 6 Sept 2020 · 196 MW · 47 7 Sept 2020 · 19 MW · 8 8 Sept 2020 · 142 MW · 33 9 Sept 2020 · 249 MW · 44 10 Sept 2020 · 181 MW · 52 11 Sept 2020 · 38 MW · 19 12 Sept 2020 · 55 MW · 11 14 Sept 2020 · 23 MW · 5 15 Sept 2020 · 68 MW · 17 16 Sept 2020 · 160 MW · 15 17 Sept 2020 · 37 MW · 11 18 Sept 2020 · 16 MW · 5
27 Aug 31 Aug 4 Sept 7 Sept 10 Sept 14 Sept 17 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

38°high
35km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,812 ha in 2017, 2,059 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,381 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.7% of the area of London (121 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. Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade 52,018 inhabitants
    7,886 ha reached on 3 Sept
    0.6 %
  2. Nova Lacerda 6,670 inhabitants where it started
    4,311 ha reached on 27 Aug
    0.9 %

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 area1.1 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.1 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (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)
27 Aug 36.0 °C 34 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Aug 35.6 °C 35 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
29 Aug 36.7 °C 29 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Aug 33.7 °C 40 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
31 Aug 34.7 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Sept 34.7 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Sept 34.0 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Sept 34.7 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Sept 35.6 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Sept 36.8 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Sept 36.8 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Sept 35.6 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Sept 34.0 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Sept 37.9 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept 38.3 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Sept 37.7 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Sept 34.9 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept 37.0 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept 38.0 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Sept 34.4 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept 35.9 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Sept 36.3 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept 35.7 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Sept after 36.4 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Sept after 30.1 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Sept after 33.2 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Sept after 31.5 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Sept after 35.3 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.9 mm High 27
24 Sept after 37.2 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Sept after 37.7 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Sept after 35.8 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Sept after 35.6 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Sept after 35.1 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.9 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2020
After · 25 Sept 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 · 435Every 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 Nova Lacerda fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2020 to 18 September 2020 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2020 to 12 September 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,139 hectares (121.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade (7,886 ha, 0.6 %); Nova Lacerda (4,311 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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: 12 September 2020 → 18 September 2020.
  2. Start date: 31 August 2020 → 27 August 2020.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 31 August 2020 to 12 September 2020. 435 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.