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Nova Ubiratã fire, 20 August 2022 Nova Ubiratã

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2022, 05:06 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2022 in Nova Ubiratã, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,323 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 290th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 58 in Brazil in 2022, of 687.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nova Ubiratã · 2019Nova Ubiratã · 2025Feliz Natal · 2018Feliz Natal · 2016

Burnt area
14,323ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
20 Aug 2022 – 22 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Aug
2022
Heat detections
1,404
in a single hotspot: 503 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
584MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug22 Sept
22 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 2022 · 189 MW · 6 21 Aug 2022 · 1,703 MW · 95 22 Aug 2022 · 875 MW · 75 23 Aug 2022 · 1,099 MW · 46 24 Aug 2022 · 456 MW · 43 25 Aug 2022 · 372 MW · 49 26 Aug 2022 · 269 MW · 31 27 Aug 2022 · 70 MW · 26 28 Aug 2022 · 474 MW · 22 29 Aug 2022 · 235 MW · 29 30 Aug 2022 · 656 MW · 70 31 Aug 2022 · 119 MW · 35 1 Sept 2022 · 449 MW · 73 2 Sept 2022 · 3,275 MW · 73 3 Sept 2022 · 1,119 MW · 51 4 Sept 2022 · 3,625 MW · 126 5 Sept 2022 · 529 MW · 57 6 Sept 2022 · 452 MW · 25 7 Sept 2022 · 538 MW · 59 8 Sept 2022 · 457 MW · 19 9 Sept 2022 · 364 MW · 21 10 Sept 2022 · 106 MW · 26 11 Sept 2022 · 433 MW · 56 12 Sept 2022 · 408 MW · 60 13 Sept 2022 · 159 MW · 24 14 Sept 2022 · 363 MW · 27 15 Sept 2022 · 139 MW · 30 16 Sept 2022 · 128 MW · 33 17 Sept 2022 · 336 MW · 66 18 Sept 2022 · 234 MW · 16 19 Sept 2022 · 11 MW · 2 20 Sept 2022 · 3 MW · 1 21 Sept 2022 · 193 MW · 18 22 Sept 2022 · 18 MW · 14
20 Aug 25 Aug 30 Aug 4 Sept 9 Sept 14 Sept 19 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

39°high
40km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.5 mm on 23 Sept.

This area had burned before

26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,579 ha in 2019, 115 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9% of the area of London (143 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 Ubiratã 11,530 inhabitants where it started
    14,409 ha reached on 20 Aug
    1.2 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.14 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.14 hectares of 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)
20 Aug 32.5 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug 34.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug 34.2 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Aug 34.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Aug 36.5 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Aug 36.6 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Aug 36.2 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Aug 36.8 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Aug 36.6 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug 36.4 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Aug 36.0 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Aug 36.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Sept 36.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Sept 35.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Sept 36.2 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Sept 35.8 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Sept 38.2 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Sept 37.4 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Sept 36.4 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept 36.3 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Sept 37.4 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 37.9 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Sept 37.8 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Sept 38.9 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Sept 37.2 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Sept 35.9 °C 33 % 32 km/h 1.0 mm High 33
15 Sept 32.4 °C 42 % 34 km/h 1.1 mm High 24
16 Sept 35.8 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Sept 37.2 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept 35.3 °C 38 % 34 km/h 2.9 mm Moderate 15
19 Sept 35.1 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
20 Sept 34.8 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Sept 34.8 °C 39 % 36 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 21
22 Sept 31.8 °C 52 % 27 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 4
23 Sept after 28.7 °C 64 % 23 km/h 5.5 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Aug 2022
After · 29 Sept 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 5 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 430 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 135: 9.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak430 µg/m³
Days over the guideline35 days
PM10615 µg/m³
Optical depth2.18
1920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 1,404Every 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 Ubiratã fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 August 2022 to 22 September 2022 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 August 2022 to 22 September 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,323 hectares (143.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nova Ubiratã (14,409 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 · 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: 21 August 2022 → 20 August 2022.

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 21 August 2022 to 22 September 2022. 1,404 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.

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.