Skip to content
worldfires
en
BR · Brazil · →

Rio Sono fire, August 2020 Centenário, Rio Sono, Lizarda

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2020, 17:02 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2020 in Rio Sono, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 72,342 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1243 with a page). Number 11 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Rio Sono · 2017Rio Sono · 2017Centenário · 2017Lizarda · 2018

Burnt area
72,342ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
18 Aug 2020 – 18 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
18 Aug
2020
Heat detections
2,393
in a single hotspot: 346 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.1GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug18 Sept
18 Sept 2020

How it evolved, day by day

18 Aug 2020 · 14 MW · 2 19 Aug 2020 · 25 MW · 3 22 Aug 2020 · 142 MW · 22 23 Aug 2020 · 142 MW · 24 24 Aug 2020 · 532 MW · 49 25 Aug 2020 · 67 MW · 8 27 Aug 2020 · 214 MW · 4 28 Aug 2020 · 364 MW · 26 29 Aug 2020 · 279 MW · 16 30 Aug 2020 · 273 MW · 27 31 Aug 2020 · 2,289 MW · 78 1 Sept 2020 · 904 MW · 121 2 Sept 2020 · 2,588 MW · 188 3 Sept 2020 · 5,171 MW · 337 4 Sept 2020 · 2,183 MW · 189 5 Sept 2020 · 6,496 MW · 284 6 Sept 2020 · 3,554 MW · 373 7 Sept 2020 · 911 MW · 123 8 Sept 2020 · 730 MW · 94 9 Sept 2020 · 837 MW · 85 10 Sept 2020 · 769 MW · 59 11 Sept 2020 · 1,611 MW · 144 12 Sept 2020 · 907 MW · 86 13 Sept 2020 · 145 MW · 27 14 Sept 2020 · 58 MW · 14 16 Sept 2020 · 5 MW · 1 17 Sept 2020 · 6 MW · 1 18 Sept 2020 · 19 MW · 8
18 Aug 24 Aug 29 Aug 2 Sept 5 Sept 6 Sept 10 Sept 14 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

39°high
51km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 393 ha in 2016, 12,355 ha in 2017, 1,753 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 46% of the area of London (723 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. Centenário 2,131 inhabitants
    34,248 ha reached on 31 Aug
    17 %
  2. Rio Sono 4,841 inhabitants where it started
    19,324 ha reached on 18 Aug
    3.0 %
  3. Lizarda 2,999 inhabitants
    19,210 ha reached on 24 Aug
    3.3 %

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 area1.4 ha
Residents≈ 100

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.4 hectares of built-up land and about 100 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)
18 Aug 36.6 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Aug 36.8 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Aug 37.0 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug 37.3 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Aug 36.9 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Aug 34.5 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Aug 35.2 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug 36.1 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug 36.9 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Aug 37.3 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Aug 36.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Aug 36.5 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Aug 36.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Aug 37.4 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
1 Sept 36.5 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
2 Sept 35.7 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
3 Sept 35.8 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
4 Sept 36.4 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Sept 37.0 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Sept 36.5 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Sept 36.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Sept 37.8 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Sept 38.2 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Sept 38.0 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Sept 38.1 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Sept 38.0 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Sept 36.7 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
14 Sept 37.0 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
15 Sept 36.5 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
16 Sept 38.1 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Sept 38.1 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Sept 38.8 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Sept after 37.7 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 38.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Sept after 36.1 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Sept after 34.7 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
23 Sept after 37.1 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
24 Sept after 38.0 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Sept after 35.5 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Sept after 35.5 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Sept after 37.8 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Sept after 39.6 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2020
After · 25 Sept 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 · 2,393Every 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 Rio Sono fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 August 2020 to 18 September 2020 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 August 2020 to 13 September 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 72,342 hectares (723.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Centenário (34,248 ha, 17 %); Rio Sono (19,324 ha, 3.0 %); Lizarda (19,210 ha, 3.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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 · 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: 13 September 2020 → 18 September 2020.

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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 August 2020 to 13 September 2020. 2,393 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.