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Paranatinga fire, 13 August 2021 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2021, 05:25 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2021 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,348 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 322th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 103 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
13,348ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
13 Aug 2021 – 1 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Aug
2021
Heat detections
534
in a single hotspot: 168 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617181920212223242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
36km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2017, 201 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    13,456 ha reached on 13 Aug
    0.6 %

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)
13 Aug 33.8 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug 33.7 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug 34.4 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Aug 34.7 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Aug 34.4 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug 33.7 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Aug 33.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Aug 32.4 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug 33.3 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug 33.9 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Aug 34.8 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Aug 35.2 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Aug 35.8 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Aug 36.3 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug 35.2 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Aug 34.1 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug 34.4 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug 33.2 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug 34.3 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 33.2 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept after 33.0 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Sept after 31.6 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept after 34.7 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept after 35.2 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept after 35.4 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Sept after 36.3 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept after 35.7 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Sept after 31.8 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Sept after 34.3 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Sept after 36.2 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept after 36.1 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Sept after 36.3 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Sept after 34.6 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2021
After · 8 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 · 534Every 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 13 August 2021 and 1 September 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 13,348 hectares (133.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (13,456 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 36 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

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.