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Água Comprida fire, August 2024 Água Comprida, Uberaba

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2024, 16:35 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2024 in Água Comprida, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,078 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 218th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 1268 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
3,078ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
23 Aug 2024 – 24 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
23 Aug
2024
Heat detections
108
in a single hotspot: 274 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2324

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high
52km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,238 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Água Comprida 2,108 inhabitants where it started
    2,016 ha reached on 23 Aug
    4.1 %
  2. Uberaba 337,836 inhabitants
    1,080 ha reached on 23 Aug
    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)
23 Aug 33.7 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Aug 33.6 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
25 Aug after 22.4 °C 51 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
26 Aug after 23.1 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
27 Aug after 29.2 °C 20 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Aug after 31.1 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug after 31.3 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug after 30.9 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug after 32.0 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Sept after 33.8 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept after 33.0 °C 13 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept after 35.9 °C 5 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2024
After · 31 Aug 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 26 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 71 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak71 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10102 µg/m³
Optical depth1.36
21222324252627
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 108Every 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 Água Comprida fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2024 and 24 August 2024: 2 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 3,078 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Água Comprida (2,016 ha, 4.1 %); Uberaba (1,080 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.

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.

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.