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Poconé fire, 30 November 2019 Poconé

Out · last detection 8 Dec 2019, 17:44 UTC

The fire started on 30 November 2019 in Poconé, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,317 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1768th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 827 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Burnt area
3,317ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
30 Nov 2019 – 8 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Nov
2019
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Nov8 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

30134568

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
45km/h · peak gust
46%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.8 mm on 9 Dec.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 103 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Poconé 31,217 inhabitants where it started
    3,348 ha reached on 30 Nov
    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)
30 Nov 35.7 °C 46 % 40 km/h 1.7 mm Low 7
1 Dec 35.6 °C 47 % 41 km/h 6.0 mm Very low 1
2 Dec 33.7 °C 53 % 35 km/h 13.3 mm Very low 0
3 Dec 30.7 °C 64 % 45 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 1
4 Dec 33.7 °C 55 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 3
5 Dec 33.4 °C 53 % 42 km/h 0.5 mm Low 6
6 Dec 32.9 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
7 Dec 34.6 °C 49 % 23 km/h 0.9 mm Low 5
8 Dec 34.8 °C 49 % 25 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 1
9 Dec after 28.7 °C 74 % 29 km/h 18.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Nov 2019
After · 15 Dec 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 · 121Every 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 30 November 2019 and 8 December 2019: 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 3,317 hectares (33.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poconé (3,348 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 7, class Low.
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.