Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Apuí fire, 27 July 2024 Apuí, Maués

Out · last detection 17 Aug 2024, 17:10 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2024 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,425 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 10th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 143 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
20,425ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
27 Jul 2024 – 16 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
27 Jul
2024
Heat detections
2,431
in a single hotspot: 773 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
64.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234567891011121314151617

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
37km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,200 ha in 2020, 17,569 ha in 2022, 3,510 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,296 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    16,347 ha reached on 29 Jul
    0.3 %
  2. Maués 61,204 inhabitants
    4,188 ha reached on 30 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)
27 Jul 36.1 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul 35.3 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jul 36.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul 37.6 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul 36.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Aug 36.1 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug 36.0 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug 35.6 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug 36.3 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Aug 36.7 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Aug 35.1 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug 38.0 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug 38.5 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 38.0 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Aug 35.1 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Aug 35.4 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug 35.7 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Aug 34.4 °C 36 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 35.3 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
15 Aug 34.3 °C 52 % 30 km/h 5.3 mm Low 6
16 Aug 34.6 °C 48 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
17 Aug after 35.9 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
18 Aug after 35.7 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
19 Aug after 36.1 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Aug after 36.4 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug after 35.9 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Aug after 38.9 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug after 37.4 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Aug after 37.1 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug after 36.6 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Aug after 34.8 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug after 36.5 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Aug after 35.8 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Aug after 33.8 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Aug after 36.6 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug after 37.7 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Sept after 36.6 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Sept after 37.9 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2024
After · 23 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 3 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 232 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 140: 9.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak232 µg/m³
Days over the guideline25 days
PM10332 µg/m³
Optical depth2.51
2526272829303112345678910111213141516171819
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 · 2,431Every 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 27 July 2024 and 16 August 2024: 21 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 20,425 hectares (204.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Apuí (16,347 ha, 0.3 %); Maués (4,188 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.