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Apuí fire, 26 August 2024 Apuí

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2024, 05:29 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2024 in Apuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,678 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 299th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 1005 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
3,678ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
26 Aug 2024 – 15 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Aug
2024
Heat detections
405
in a single hotspot: 480 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
8.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2628293031123456789101112131415

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
35km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 24 Sept.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 178 ha in 2016, 479 ha in 2017, 254 ha in 2020, 2,570 ha in 2021, 1,201 ha in 2022, 1,546 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,874 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Apuí 20,647 inhabitants where it started
    3,696 ha reached on 26 Aug
    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)
26 Aug 34.8 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug 36.7 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Aug 36.4 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 33.0 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
30 Aug 36.8 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug 37.9 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Sept 37.0 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Sept 38.0 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept 36.3 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Sept 36.6 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept 38.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Sept 34.8 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 34.3 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Sept 36.9 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Sept 36.8 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Sept 36.4 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Sept 37.5 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Sept 39.4 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Sept 38.4 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Sept 37.6 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Sept 36.9 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
16 Sept after 37.9 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
17 Sept after 38.9 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Sept after 36.5 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
19 Sept after 34.3 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
20 Sept after 38.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Sept after 38.0 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Sept after 38.4 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Sept after 39.2 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept after 35.0 °C 43 % 27 km/h 1.1 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2024
After · 22 Sept 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 29 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 428 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 243: 16 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak428 µg/m³
Days over the guideline26 days
PM10613 µg/m³
Optical depth4.05
2425262728293031123456789101112131415161718
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 · 405Every 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 26 August 2024 and 15 September 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 3,678 hectares (36.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Apuí (3,696 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.