Nova Mamoré fire, August 2020 Nova Mamoré
The fire started on 15 August 2020 in Nova Mamoré, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,338 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 112th largest in Rondônia since 2016 (of 300 with a page). Number 477 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 5,338ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 15 Aug 2020 – 31 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 474
- in a single hotspot: 517 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 456MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,636 ha in 2016, 5,581 ha in 2017, 4,690 ha in 2018, 9,944 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,352 ha that had burned before.
- 3,288 ha Nova Mamoré fire, July 2019 10,234 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,232 ha Nova Mamoré fire, July 2017 5,012 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,027 ha Nova Mamoré fire, July 2017 9,024 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,156 ha Nova Mamoré fire, August 2018 3,322 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,092 ha Nova Mamoré fire, August 2016 4,811 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 461 ha Nova Mamoré fire, August 2016 3,522 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 200 ha Nova Mamoré fire, August 2018 5,564 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1 ha Nova Mamoré fire, July 2016 9,270 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
5,374 ha reached on 15 Aug0.5 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Aug | 34.6 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Aug | 36.0 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Aug | 36.9 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Aug | 36.7 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Aug | 36.6 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 20 Aug | 35.7 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 3.9 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 21 Aug | 18.7 °C | 59 % | 43 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 9 |
| 22 Aug | 24.9 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 23 Aug | 29.7 °C | 40 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 24 Aug | 33.0 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 25 Aug | 34.9 °C | 30 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 26 Aug | 34.4 °C | 39 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 27 Aug | 37.1 °C | 32 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Aug | 36.2 °C | 39 % | 20 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 29 |
| 29 Aug | 35.5 °C | 41 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Aug | 35.2 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 31 Aug | 34.2 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 1 Sept after | 35.3 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Sept after | 34.4 °C | 28 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Sept after | 36.8 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Sept after | 35.4 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Sept after | 35.9 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Sept after | 36.5 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Sept after | 36.5 °C | 36 % | 20 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 34 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 474Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,976 haNova Mamoré29 July 2021 · 41 days · 2 km away
- 10,234 haNova Mamoré31 July 2019 · 25 days · 2 km away
- 9,024 haNova Mamoré25 July 2017 · 24 days · 5 km away
- 18,479 haNova Mamoré30 July 2019 · 26 days · 15 km away
- 9,270 haNova Mamoré24 July 2016 · 24 days · 21 km away
- 13,807 haNova Mamoré11 August 2022 · 31 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nova Mamoré fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 August 2020 to 31 August 2020 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 August 2020 to 27 August 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,338 hectares (53.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Nova Mamoré (5,374 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 27 August 2020 → 31 August 2020.
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
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 15 August 2020 to 27 August 2020. 474 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.
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.