Pontes e Lacerda fire, 27 August 2021 Pontes e Lacerda, Porto Esperidião
The fire started on 27 August 2021 in Pontes e Lacerda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,582 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 77th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 19 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 36,582ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 27 Aug 2021 – 22 Sept 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 27 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1,350
- in a single hotspot: 71 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 256MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 29 Sept.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 708 ha in 2016, 10,917 ha in 2017, 10,891 ha in 2018, 21,426 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 31,480 ha that had burned before.
- 8,595 ha Porto Esperidião fire, September 2019 21,695 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,583 ha Pontes e Lacerda fire, July 2018 13,418 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,562 ha Porto Esperidião fire, September 2017 15,082 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,039 ha Porto Esperidião fire, September 2019 3,433 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,355 ha Pontes e Lacerda fire, September 2019 24,755 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,155 ha Pontes e Lacerda fire, June 2017 3,921 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Pontes e Lacerda where it started25,047 ha reached on 27 Aug2.9 %
-
Porto Esperidião 10,204 inhabitants11,810 ha reached on 3 Sept2.0 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Aug | 28.0 °C | 41 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Aug | 28.3 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 29 Aug | 27.6 °C | 46 % | 45 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 30 Aug | 31.4 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 31 Aug | 33.6 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Sept | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Sept | 31.5 °C | 41 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Sept | 28.9 °C | 50 % | 32 km/h | 2.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 4 Sept | 32.6 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 5 Sept | 32.4 °C | 39 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 24 |
| 6 Sept | 33.3 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Sept | 33.1 °C | 38 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 8 Sept | 33.6 °C | 35 % | 51 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Sept | 22.4 °C | 64 % | 32 km/h | 5.6 mm | Very low 3 |
| 10 Sept | 25.0 °C | 51 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 11 Sept | 30.5 °C | 43 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 12 Sept | 33.0 °C | 36 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 13 Sept | 33.2 °C | 36 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Sept | 32.4 °C | 37 % | 58 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Sept | 27.9 °C | 52 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Sept | 31.1 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 17 Sept | 33.5 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 18 Sept | 33.7 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Sept | 34.4 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Sept | 35.7 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Sept | 32.7 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Sept | 30.7 °C | 40 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 28 |
| 24 Sept after | 31.4 °C | 34 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 32 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Sept after | 34.4 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Sept after | 31.3 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 24 |
| 28 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 39 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Sept after | 33.8 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 21 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 1,350Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 20,745 haPontes e Lacerda1 September 2019 · 30 days · 11 km away
- 21,695 haPorto Esperidião12 September 2019 · 14 days · 13 km away
- 15,082 haPorto EsperidiãoSeptember 2017 · 14 days · 13 km away
- 34,642 haPontes e Lacerda15 September 2025 · 17 days · 14 km away
- 24,755 haPontes e Lacerda1 September 2019 · 35 days · 20 km away
- 15,610 haPontes e Lacerda2 November 2023 · 18 days · 21 km away
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 27 August 2021 to 22 September 2021 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2021 to 15 September 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 36,582 hectares (365.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pontes e Lacerda (25,047 ha, 2.9 %); Porto Esperidião (11,810 ha, 2.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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.
- Last day with fire: 15 September 2021 → 22 September 2021.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 August 2021 to 15 September 2021. 1,350 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.
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.