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Poconé fire, March 2020 Poconé

Out · last detection 19 Mar 2020, 17:31 UTC

The fire started on 2 March 2020 in Poconé, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,244 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 209th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 86 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
18,244ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
2 Mar 2020 – 20 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Mar
2020
Heat detections
1,166
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Energy released
10.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Mar20 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2345678910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
35km/h · peak gust
38%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 27.9 mm on 21 Mar.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 178 ha in 2017, 387 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 463 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Poconé 31,217 inhabitants where it started
    18,425 ha reached on 2 Mar
    1.1 %

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)
2 Mar 33.8 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
3 Mar 33.2 °C 47 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
4 Mar 34.2 °C 45 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
5 Mar 35.3 °C 43 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
6 Mar 35.5 °C 39 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
7 Mar 34.6 °C 46 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
8 Mar 36.1 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
9 Mar 34.8 °C 47 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
10 Mar 36.0 °C 43 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
11 Mar 36.2 °C 44 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Mar 35.2 °C 53 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Low 11
13 Mar 34.2 °C 57 % 26 km/h 0.6 mm Low 8
14 Mar 36.7 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm Low 11
15 Mar 34.9 °C 53 % 23 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 3
16 Mar 32.8 °C 60 % 30 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 2
17 Mar 34.3 °C 53 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Low 7
18 Mar 33.4 °C 59 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Low 8
19 Mar 34.9 °C 54 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm Low 9
20 Mar 27.3 °C 84 % 18 km/h 40.9 mm Very low 0
21 Mar after 27.9 °C 87 % 19 km/h 27.9 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Feb 2020
After · 27 Mar 2020

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 · 1,166Every 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 2 March 2020 and 20 March 2020: 19 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 18,244 hectares (182.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poconé (18,425 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
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.