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Paranatinga fire, 20 August 2021 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2021, 05:12 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2021 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,724 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1550th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 608 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
3,724ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
20 Aug 2021 – 23 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Aug
2021
Heat detections
110
in a single hotspot: 363 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

20212223

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
38km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 415 ha in 2016, 1,916 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    3,753 ha reached on 20 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)
20 Aug 32.7 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Aug 33.5 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug 34.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug 34.9 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug after 35.3 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Aug after 36.1 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug after 36.0 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug after 34.7 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug after 34.1 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug after 34.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Aug after 33.5 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Aug after 34.4 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Sept after 33.7 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Sept after 32.7 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Sept after 31.6 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept after 34.8 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept after 35.5 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept after 35.4 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Sept after 36.5 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept after 35.6 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Aug 2021
After · 30 Aug 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 · 110Every 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 20 August 2021 and 23 August 2021: 4 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 3,724 hectares (37.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (3,753 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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
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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.