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Ribeirão Cascalheira fire, August 2018 Ribeirão Cascalheira, Canarana

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2018, 17:02 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2018 in Ribeirão Cascalheira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,870 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 180th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 8 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
20,870ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
28 Aug 2018 – 13 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2018
Heat detections
828
in a single hotspot: 140 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112345678910111213

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
48km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 17 Sept.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,205 ha in 2016, 14,764 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,963 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ribeirão Cascalheira 10,089 inhabitants where it started
    18,813 ha reached on 26 Aug
    1.6 %
  2. Canarana
    2,219 ha reached on 2 Sept
    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)
26 Aug 34.8 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug 36.6 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Aug 35.1 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Aug 35.3 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug 35.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 35.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Sept 36.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept 36.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Sept 33.5 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept 32.9 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept 34.6 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 36.3 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Sept 37.2 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept 35.3 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Sept 37.3 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Sept 36.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept 37.8 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Sept 38.6 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Sept 36.3 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Sept after 35.1 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Sept after 34.9 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Sept after 36.4 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Sept after 33.7 °C 41 % 32 km/h 3.4 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2018
After · 20 Sept 2018

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 · 828Every 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 Ribeirão Cascalheira fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 August 2018 and 13 September 2018: 17 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 20,870 hectares (208.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ribeirão Cascalheira (18,813 ha, 1.6 %); Canarana (2,219 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
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.

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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.