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Nova Mamoré fire, 28 August 2020 Nova Mamoré

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2020, 05:43 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2020 in Nova Mamoré, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,877 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 126th largest in Rondônia since 2016 (of 300 with a page). Number 525 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nova Mamoré · 2019Nova Mamoré · 2016Nova Mamoré · 2019Nova Mamoré · 2024

Burnt area
4,877ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
28 Aug 2020 – 14 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2020
Heat detections
352
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Average daily power
174MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug14 Sept
14 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

28 Aug 2020 · 24 MW · 5 31 Aug 2020 · 86 MW · 7 1 Sept 2020 · 26 MW · 4 4 Sept 2020 · 383 MW · 28 5 Sept 2020 · 17 MW · 6 6 Sept 2020 · 262 MW · 32 7 Sept 2020 · 126 MW · 11 8 Sept 2020 · 831 MW · 104 9 Sept 2020 · 285 MW · 107 10 Sept 2020 · 154 MW · 38 11 Sept 2020 · 61 MW · 6 12 Sept 2020 · 12 MW · 3 14 Sept 2020 · 1 MW · 1
28 Aug 1 Sept 5 Sept 7 Sept 8 Sept 9 Sept 11 Sept 14 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
31km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 19 Sept.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,033 ha in 2016, 344 ha in 2017, 4,962 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,689 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.1% of the area of London (49 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. Nova Mamoré 25,444 inhabitants where it started
    4,905 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.5 %

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.

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)
28 Aug 36.1 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.5 mm High 25
29 Aug 35.2 °C 47 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Aug 36.1 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
31 Aug 34.9 °C 45 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
1 Sept 35.5 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Sept 34.3 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Sept 34.9 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Sept 36.9 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Sept 35.9 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Sept 34.9 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Sept 36.2 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Sept 36.3 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Sept 36.6 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Sept 36.4 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
11 Sept 34.7 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
12 Sept 35.5 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
13 Sept 36.2 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Sept 35.0 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
15 Sept after 33.1 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Sept after 33.9 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Sept after 34.7 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Sept after 34.7 °C 47 % 19 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
19 Sept after 34.7 °C 45 % 24 km/h 2.5 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2020
After · 21 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 · 352Every 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 Mamoré fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2020 to 14 September 2020 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2020 to 12 September 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,877 hectares (48.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nova Mamoré (4,905 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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 · 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 → 14 September 2020.
  2. Start date: 4 September 2020 → 28 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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 September 2020 to 12 September 2020. 352 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.

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.