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Poconé fire, 7 September 2019 Poconé

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2019, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2019 in Poconé, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,795 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 551th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 206 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
8,795ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
7 Sept 2019 – 11 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Sept
2019
Heat detections
335
in a single hotspot: 266 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

7891011

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
44km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,041 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Poconé 31,217 inhabitants where it started
    8,802 ha reached on 7 Sept
    0.5 %

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 Sept 38.3 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Sept 38.0 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Sept 38.7 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 38.4 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept 38.8 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Sept after 33.8 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
13 Sept after 30.8 °C 53 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Sept after 37.0 °C 38 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Sept after 39.5 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Sept after 39.9 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Sept after 39.5 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Sept after 39.8 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Sept after 38.0 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 39.2 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Sept after 35.8 °C 44 % 34 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 · 31 Aug 2019
After · 18 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 · 335Every 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 Poconé fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 September 2019 and 11 September 2019: 5 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 8,795 hectares (88.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poconé (8,802 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.