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Paranatinga fire, 7 August 2021 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2021, 04:16 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2021 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,666 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 937th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 338 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
5,666ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
7 Aug 2021 – 26 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Aug
2021
Heat detections
582
in a single hotspot: 351 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
12.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151617181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
41km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 9 Sept.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,478 ha in 2017, 4,945 ha in 2019, 2,254 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,461 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    5,700 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
7 Aug 32.8 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Aug 32.7 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Aug 33.3 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug 34.2 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug 34.7 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Aug 33.7 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Aug 35.1 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Aug 34.8 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Aug 35.5 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Aug 35.9 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug 35.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug 35.2 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Aug 34.7 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Aug 33.6 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Aug 34.9 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Aug 35.0 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug 35.7 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug 36.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Aug 37.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Aug 37.0 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug after 36.1 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Aug after 35.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug after 36.4 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug after 34.7 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug after 35.5 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Sept after 34.3 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Sept after 33.6 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Sept after 32.5 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Sept after 35.6 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept after 35.8 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept after 35.9 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Sept after 37.6 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept after 36.7 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept after 32.9 °C 42 % 30 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2021
After · 2 Sept 2021

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 · 582Every 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 7 August 2021 and 26 August 2021: 20 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 5,666 hectares (56.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (5,700 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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.