Nova Nazaré fire, 10 August 2021 Nova Nazaré
The fire started on 10 August 2021 in Nova Nazaré, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,202 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1841th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 745 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,202ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 10 Aug 2021 – 25 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 10 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 141
- in a single hotspot: 185 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 222MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,110 ha in 2016, 2,718 ha in 2017, 733 ha in 2018, 940 ha in 2019, 2,706 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,211 ha that had burned before.
- 2,718 ha Nova Nazaré fire, August 2017 47,537 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,706 ha Nova Nazaré fire, August 2020 70,325 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,110 ha Nova Nazaré fire, July 2016 56,021 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 733 ha Nova Nazaré fire, August 2018 58,818 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
-
Nova Nazaré where it started3,225 ha reached on 13 Aug0.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Aug | 35.3 °C | 24 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Aug | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Aug | 35.8 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Aug | 36.7 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 14 Aug | 36.2 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 15 Aug | 36.6 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 16 Aug | 37.2 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Aug | 36.9 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Aug | 36.3 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Aug | 35.7 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 20 Aug | 34.6 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 21 Aug | 35.5 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 22 Aug | 36.6 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Aug | 37.1 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 Aug | 37.6 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Aug | 38.4 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 Aug after | 39.3 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Aug after | 38.7 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 Aug after | 36.8 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Aug after | 36.7 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 30 Aug after | 35.7 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 31 Aug after | 36.8 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Sept after | 35.9 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Sept after | 36.4 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Sept after | 36.2 °C | 28 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Sept after | 38.4 °C | 20 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
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 · 141Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 70,325 haNova NazaréAugust 2020 · 44 days · 2 km away
- 56,021 haNova NazaréJuly 2016 · 48 days · 6 km away
- 27,124 haNova Nazaré14 August 2019 · 43 days · 11 km away
- 47,537 haNova NazaréAugust 2017 · 36 days · 15 km away
- 58,818 haNova NazaréAugust 2018 · 17 days · 17 km away
- 124,689 haNova Nazaré28 July 2026 · 38 days · 18 km away
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 10 August 2021 to 25 August 2021 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 August 2021 to 25 August 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,202 hectares (32.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Nova Nazaré (3,225 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.
- Start date: 17 August 2021 → 10 August 2021.
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 17 August 2021 to 25 August 2021. 141 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.