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Paranatinga fire, 29 August 2019 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2019, 17:08 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2019 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,508 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 186th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 48 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
20,508ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
29 Aug 2019 – 21 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Aug
2019
Heat detections
2,086
in a single hotspot: 259 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
29.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug21 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

293031123456789101112131415161718192021

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

40°high
42km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18,190 ha in 2017, 448 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,886 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    20,624 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.8 %

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)
29 Aug 35.2 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Aug 36.7 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug 37.0 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Sept 37.4 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Sept 37.6 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Sept 38.5 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Sept 39.3 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Sept 39.9 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Sept 38.4 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Sept 37.0 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Sept 36.9 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Sept 37.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 37.3 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Sept 38.6 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept 39.3 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept 37.3 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept 38.9 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Sept 39.4 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept 38.6 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept 39.6 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept 37.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Sept 36.6 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Sept 38.1 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Sept 38.0 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Sept after 38.1 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.9 mm High 31
23 Sept after 37.4 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Sept after 35.9 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Sept after 36.6 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Sept after 29.9 °C 55 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm High 23
27 Sept after 34.8 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Sept after 33.9 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
29 Sept after 33.6 °C 48 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
30 Sept after 33.3 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Oct after 36.1 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2019
After · 28 Sept 2019

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 · 2,086Every 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 Paranatinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2019 and 21 September 2019: 24 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 20,508 hectares (205.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (20,624 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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
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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.