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Nova Nazaré fire, 31 August 2018 Nova Nazaré, Nova Xavantina

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2018, 17:14 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2018 in Nova Nazaré, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,358 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1742th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 234 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nova Nazaré · 2016Nova Nazaré · 2017Nova Nazaré · 2020Nova Nazaré · 2016

Burnt area
3,358ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
31 Aug 2018 – 7 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
31 Aug
2018
Heat detections
108
in a single hotspot: 174 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
256MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug7 Sept
7 Sept 2018

How it evolved, day by day

31 Aug 2018 · 18 MW · 4 1 Sept 2018 · 38 MW · 8 2 Sept 2018 · 1,582 MW · 40 3 Sept 2018 · 177 MW · 18 4 Sept 2018 · 115 MW · 16 5 Sept 2018 · 81 MW · 17 6 Sept 2018 · 32 MW · 2 7 Sept 2018 · 7 MW · 3
31 Aug 2 Sept 4 Sept 6 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
38km/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

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,523 ha in 2016, 4 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.1% of the area of London (34 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 Nazaré where it started
    3,349 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.8 %
  2. Nova Xavantina 24,345 inhabitants
    37 ha
    0.0 %

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)
29 Aug 36.2 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug 36.5 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 36.3 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 37.5 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 37.4 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Sept 32.9 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept 32.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept 34.5 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept 36.8 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Sept 38.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept after 36.2 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept after 37.9 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept after 37.9 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept after 38.7 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept after 39.6 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Sept after 37.7 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept after 35.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Sept after 34.0 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Sept after 35.7 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Sept after 34.0 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2018
After · 14 Sept 2018

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 · 108Every 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 Nazaré fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 August 2018 to 7 September 2018 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2018 to 7 September 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,358 hectares (33.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nova Nazaré (3,349 ha, 0.8 %); Nova Xavantina (37 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 1 September 2018 → 31 August 2018.

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 1 September 2018 to 7 September 2018. 108 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.