How long did the Altamira fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 August 2024 to 15 September 2024 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2024 to 11 September 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,340 hectares (73.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Altamira (6,115 ha, 0.0 %); Novo Progresso (1,291 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

BR · Brazil · 12 Aug 2024 – 15 Sept 2024

Altamira fire, 12 August 2024 Altamira, Novo Progresso

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2024, 16:25 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2024 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,340 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 332th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1114 with a page). Number 451 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Altamira · 2022 Altamira · 2020 Altamira · 2018 Novo Progresso · 2021

Burnt area: 7,340ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 35days; 12 Aug 2024 – 15 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 12 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 643; in a single hotspot: 238 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 444MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug15 Sept

Play back 15 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

16 Aug 23 Aug 1 Sept 10 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

38°high

34km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 692 ha in 2016, 1,239 ha in 2018, 3,571 ha in 2019, 2,475 ha in 2020, 2,339 ha in 2021, 3,859 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,796 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.6% of the area of London (73 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

Altamira 126,279 inhabitants where it started

6,115 ha reached on 16 Aug

0.0 %
Novo Progresso 33,638 inhabitants

1,291 ha reached on 21 Aug

0.0 %

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
12 Aug	34.0 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
13 Aug	34.9 °C	29 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Aug	35.3 °C	38 %	27 km/h	0.3 mm	High 33
15 Aug	34.7 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
16 Aug	36.2 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Aug	36.6 °C	26 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
18 Aug	34.6 °C	32 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
19 Aug	36.3 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
20 Aug	35.6 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
21 Aug	36.6 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
22 Aug	36.9 °C	27 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Aug	36.9 °C	27 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 Aug	36.5 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Aug	36.0 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
26 Aug	33.3 °C	31 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
27 Aug	35.6 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 Aug	36.2 °C	26 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
29 Aug	34.8 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
30 Aug	35.9 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
31 Aug	36.6 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Sept	36.7 °C	21 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
2 Sept	37.1 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
3 Sept	36.4 °C	27 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Sept	36.6 °C	24 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Sept	38.5 °C	17 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
6 Sept	37.0 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
7 Sept	36.9 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
8 Sept	35.9 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Sept	37.1 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Sept	37.1 °C	25 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Sept	36.4 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Sept	37.5 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
13 Sept	36.5 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
14 Sept	36.7 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
15 Sept	36.6 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
16 Sept after	34.9 °C	35 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
17 Sept after	36.7 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
18 Sept after	35.7 °C	37 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Sept after	35.4 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
20 Sept after	37.5 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
21 Sept after	36.1 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
22 Sept after	35.3 °C	39 %	29 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
23 Sept after	36.0 °C	38 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	High 31
24 Sept after	34.7 °C	41 %	23 km/h	0.3 mm	High 30
25 Sept after	35.0 °C	42 %	24 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Aug 2024

After · 22 Sept 2024

Before After

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 4 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 663 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 386: 26 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak663 µg/m³

Days over the guideline28 days

PM10948 µg/m³

Optical depth2.92

WHO 15

17 Aug23 Aug29 Aug4 Sept10 Sept

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 · 643Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Altamira fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 August 2024 to 15 September 2024 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2024 to 11 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,340 hectares (73.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Altamira (6,115 ha, 0.0 %); Novo Progresso (1,291 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 11 September 2024 → 15 September 2024.
25 October 2026 Start date: 19 August 2024 → 12 August 2024.

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 August 2024 to 11 September 2024. 643 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 2025, 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.

Where it burned