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Urupá fire, August 2020 Urupá, Alvorada D'Oeste

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2020, 18:11 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2020 in Urupá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,609 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 138th largest in Rondônia since 2016 (of 300 with a page). Number 554 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
4,609ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
15 Aug 2020 – 23 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
15 Aug
2020
Heat detections
245
in a single hotspot: 127 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920222324

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
42km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 29 ha in 2016, 605 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Urupá 10,725 inhabitants where it started
    3,403 ha reached on 15 Aug
    4.1 %
  2. Alvorada D'Oeste 13,117 inhabitants
    1,235 ha reached on 18 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
15 Aug 36.4 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Aug 36.2 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Aug 37.3 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Aug 37.4 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug 36.1 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
20 Aug 29.3 °C 52 % 41 km/h 3.6 mm Low 9
21 Aug 17.5 °C 54 % 42 km/h 1.4 mm Low 9
22 Aug 26.6 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Aug 30.9 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Aug after 33.9 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Aug after 34.5 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Aug after 34.2 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Aug after 36.0 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Aug after 36.5 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Aug after 36.0 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Aug after 35.4 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Aug after 35.5 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Sept after 35.6 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Sept after 35.8 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Sept after 36.2 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Sept after 37.2 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Sept after 37.0 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Sept after 36.7 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Sept after 36.4 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2020
After · 30 Aug 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 · 245Every 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 Urupá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 August 2020 and 23 August 2020: 9 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 4,609 hectares (46.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Urupá (3,403 ha, 4.1 %); Alvorada D'Oeste (1,235 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

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.