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Nova Maringá fire, 5 September 2020 Nova Maringá, São José do Rio Claro

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2020, 16:43 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2020 in Nova Maringá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,687 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 217th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 88 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
17,687ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
5 Sept 2020 – 19 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2020
Heat detections
607
in a single hotspot: 245 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
11.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

567101112131415161719

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
41km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 22 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. Nova Maringá 5,846 inhabitants where it started
    17,770 ha reached on 1 Sept
    1.5 %
  2. São José do Rio Claro 14,911 inhabitants
    47 ha
    0.0 %

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)
31 Aug 38.4 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Sept 36.8 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept 36.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept 35.8 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Sept 37.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Sept 37.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Sept 37.7 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Sept 38.1 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept 37.7 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Sept 38.1 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Sept 37.9 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Sept 38.0 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Sept 36.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Sept 38.1 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Sept 37.4 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Sept 36.4 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept 36.4 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Sept 36.4 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept 37.0 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept 37.3 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Sept after 33.2 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Sept after 35.4 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Sept after 31.6 °C 42 % 33 km/h 1.0 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2020
After · 26 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 · 607Every 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 Maringá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2020 and 19 September 2020: 15 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 17,687 hectares (176.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nova Maringá (17,770 ha, 1.5 %); São José do Rio Claro (47 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.