How long did the Apuí fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2024 and 14 August 2024: 19 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 5,029 hectares (50.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Apuí (5,052 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °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.

BR · Brazil · 2024-07-27 → 2024-08-14

Apuí fire, 27 July 2024 Apuí

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2024, 18:07 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2024 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,029 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 160th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 674 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area: 5,029ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 27 Jul 2024 – 14 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 27 Jul; 2024
Heat detections: 575; in a single hotspot: 285 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Energy released: 6.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 14 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

303112345678910121314

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

37km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.9 mm on 15 Aug.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2019, 1,474 ha in 2021, 2,127 ha in 2022, 921 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,992 ha that had burned before.

26 ha Apuí fire, August 2022 8,661 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started

5,052 ha reached on 20 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)
20 Jul	36.5 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
21 Jul	36.7 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
22 Jul	36.4 °C	26 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
23 Jul	36.1 °C	27 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
24 Jul	36.5 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
25 Jul	36.2 °C	29 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Jul	35.8 °C	29 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
27 Jul	35.9 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Jul	35.4 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 Jul	36.8 °C	28 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
30 Jul	37.5 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
31 Jul	36.7 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
1 Aug	36.1 °C	33 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
2 Aug	35.8 °C	33 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Aug	35.6 °C	38 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
4 Aug	36.2 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
5 Aug	36.5 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
6 Aug	35.0 °C	35 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
7 Aug	37.8 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
8 Aug	38.3 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Aug	37.8 °C	26 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Aug	34.7 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Aug	35.0 °C	28 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
12 Aug	35.7 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
13 Aug	34.5 °C	36 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
14 Aug	35.2 °C	42 %	24 km/h	1.0 mm	High 23
15 Aug after	34.5 °C	50 %	30 km/h	7.9 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Jul 2024

After · 21 Aug 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 9 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 405 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 232: 15 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak405 µg/m³

Days over the guideline24 days

PM10579 µg/m³

Optical depth3.51

WHO 15

252627282930311234567891011121314151617

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 · 575Every 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 Apuí fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2024 and 14 August 2024: 19 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 5,029 hectares (50.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Apuí (5,052 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned