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Pontes e Lacerda fire, 1 September 2019 Pontes e Lacerda, Porto Esperidião, Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2019, 05:13 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2019 in Pontes e Lacerda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 24,755 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 142th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 36 in Brazil in 2019, of 974.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pontes e Lacerda · 2018Pontes e Lacerda · 2021Pontes e Lacerda · 2019San Matías · 2024

Burnt area
24,755ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
35days
1 Sept 2019 – 5 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
1 Sept
2019
Heat detections
924
in a single hotspot: 210 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
225MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept5 Oct
5 Oct 2019

How it evolved, day by day

1 Sept 2019 · 18 MW · 4 2 Sept 2019 · 99 MW · 13 3 Sept 2019 · 4 MW · 1 4 Sept 2019 · 9 MW · 3 5 Sept 2019 · 38 MW · 9 6 Sept 2019 · 59 MW · 4 7 Sept 2019 · 27 MW · 9 9 Sept 2019 · 374 MW · 43 10 Sept 2019 · 461 MW · 33 11 Sept 2019 · 43 MW · 17 13 Sept 2019 · 66 MW · 32 14 Sept 2019 · 163 MW · 59 15 Sept 2019 · 151 MW · 27 16 Sept 2019 · 96 MW · 22 17 Sept 2019 · 70 MW · 23 18 Sept 2019 · 173 MW · 33 19 Sept 2019 · 64 MW · 30 20 Sept 2019 · 68 MW · 15 21 Sept 2019 · 27 MW · 3 22 Sept 2019 · 154 MW · 27 23 Sept 2019 · 479 MW · 72 24 Sept 2019 · 246 MW · 55 25 Sept 2019 · 316 MW · 35 28 Sept 2019 · 276 MW · 38 29 Sept 2019 · 657 MW · 96 30 Sept 2019 · 2,363 MW · 214 3 Oct 2019 · 2 MW · 2 4 Oct 2019 · 15 MW · 3 5 Oct 2019 · 4 MW · 2
1 Sept 6 Sept 13 Sept 18 Sept 23 Sept 30 Sept

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
60km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 8 Oct.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,872 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 16% of the area of London (248 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Pontes e Lacerda where it started
    22,298 ha reached on 1 Sept
    2.6 %
  2. Porto Esperidião 10,204 inhabitants
    2,046 ha reached on 10 Sept
    0.4 %
  3. Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade 52,018 inhabitants
    627 ha reached on 30 Sept
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.99 ha
Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.99 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
1 Sept 26.9 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
2 Sept 31.0 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
3 Sept 31.6 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
4 Sept 32.8 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Sept 33.1 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Sept 34.9 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Sept 34.8 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Sept 35.0 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Sept 35.1 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Sept 34.8 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Sept 35.1 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Sept 27.4 °C 47 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Sept 29.8 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Sept 34.8 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Sept 35.5 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Sept 35.6 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Sept 33.7 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Sept 35.1 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Sept 34.2 °C 40 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Sept 35.7 °C 34 % 53 km/h 0.4 mm High 35
21 Sept 32.0 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Sept 31.9 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Sept 35.1 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Sept 34.8 °C 39 % 28 km/h 3.2 mm Low 9
25 Sept 28.0 °C 57 % 34 km/h 19.5 mm Very low 1
26 Sept 28.1 °C 52 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
27 Sept 31.0 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 12
28 Sept 32.8 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Sept 34.4 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 17
30 Sept 35.2 °C 40 % 42 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 18
1 Oct 32.9 °C 46 % 55 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 19
2 Oct 28.0 °C 53 % 38 km/h 1.1 mm Low 11
3 Oct 32.7 °C 39 % 22 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 12
4 Oct 33.2 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18
5 Oct 27.0 °C 63 % 31 km/h 21.5 mm Very low 0
6 Oct after 21.5 °C 69 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 2
7 Oct after 26.4 °C 57 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
8 Oct after 29.6 °C 55 % 27 km/h 1.0 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2019
After · 12 Oct 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 · 924Every 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 Pontes e Lacerda fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 September 2019 to 5 October 2019 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2019 to 1 October 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 24,755 hectares (247.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pontes e Lacerda (22,298 ha, 2.6 %); Porto Esperidião (2,046 ha, 0.4 %); Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade (627 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 1 October 2019 → 5 October 2019.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 September 2019 to 1 October 2019. 924 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.