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Paranatinga fire, 15 September 2021 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2021, 16:24 UTC

The fire started on 15 September 2021 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,941 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 883th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 317 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
5,941ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
15 Sept 2021 – 23 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Sept
2021
Heat detections
214
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Sept23 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223

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
33km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 26 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    5,990 ha reached on 8 Sept
    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)
8 Sept 36.6 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 32.6 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
10 Sept 35.1 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Sept 36.8 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Sept 37.0 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
13 Sept 36.8 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept 35.1 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
15 Sept 36.3 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Sept 37.7 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Sept 36.4 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept 36.6 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept 37.3 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept 38.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Sept 39.0 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Sept 37.5 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Sept 36.5 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Sept after 33.7 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
25 Sept after 35.2 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Sept after 32.5 °C 45 % 37 km/h 1.6 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Sept 2021
After · 30 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 · 214Every 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 15 September 2021 and 23 September 2021: 9 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 5,941 hectares (59.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (5,990 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 33 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.