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Apuí fire, 23 July 2024 Apuí

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2024, 18:06 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2024 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,603 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 83th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 431 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
7,603ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
23 Jul 2024 – 14 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2024
Heat detections
450
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2324293031123456791011121314

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
40km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 15 Aug.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,280 ha in 2021, 3,108 ha in 2022, 3,464 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,483 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    7,649 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
17 Jul 34.7 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Jul 35.3 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jul 35.9 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Jul 36.0 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jul 36.2 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul 35.9 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Jul 35.6 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jul 36.0 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jul 35.8 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Jul 35.8 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jul 34.9 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jul 35.8 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jul 36.6 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Jul 37.2 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Jul 36.9 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Aug 36.9 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug 36.1 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug 35.5 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Aug 36.3 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug 36.1 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Aug 35.5 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Aug 37.4 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Aug 38.0 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 37.6 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Aug 32.4 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Aug 33.7 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Aug 34.3 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 35.2 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug 34.6 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug after 35.0 °C 44 % 30 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2024
After · 21 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 25 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 546 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 352: 23 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak546 µg/m³
Days over the guideline27 days
PM10779 µg/m³
Optical depth3.25
21222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617
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 · 450Every 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 Apuí fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2024 and 14 August 2024: 23 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 7,603 hectares (76.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (7,649 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.

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.