Aripuanã fire, September 2024 Aripuanã
The fire started on 16 September 2024 in Aripuanã, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,530 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 493th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 343 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
- Burnt area
- 9,530ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 16 Sept 2024 – 27 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 333
- in a single hotspot: 208 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.6GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
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 1 Oct.
This area had burned before
68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 452 ha in 2016, 947 ha in 2017, 1,359 ha in 2018, 1,180 ha in 2019, 2,860 ha in 2020, 2,546 ha in 2021, 2,000 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,479 ha that had burned before.
- 2,740 ha Aripuanã fire, September 2020 10,170 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,960 ha Aripuanã fire, September 2022 7,465 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,180 ha Aripuanã fire, September 2019 5,278 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 944 ha Aripuanã fire, September 2017 3,466 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 620 ha Juruena fire, July 2021 3,871 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 566 ha Aripuanã fire, August 2018 5,215 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
9,597 ha reached on 16 Sept0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Sept | 33.1 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Sept | 35.9 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Sept | 35.0 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Sept | 33.4 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Sept | 35.9 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Sept | 34.5 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Sept | 36.1 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Sept | 36.0 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 24 Sept | 34.7 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Sept | 35.4 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Sept | 34.9 °C | 32 % | 25 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Sept | 32.8 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 1.2 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Sept after | 34.4 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 5.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 29 Sept after | 32.8 °C | 47 % | 27 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 30 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 49 % | 28 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 1 Oct after | 31.0 °C | 48 % | 30 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 11 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 19 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 177 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 140: 9.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 333Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,170 haAripuanã1 September 2020 · 16 days · 11 km away
- 7,465 haAripuanã1 September 2022 · 12 days · 16 km away
- 5,278 haAripuanãSeptember 2019 · 14 days · 17 km away
- 5,215 haAripuanã30 August 2018 · 19 days · 17 km away
- 3,871 haJuruenaJuly 2021 · 14 days · 17 km away
- 4,158 haAripuanã10 August 2021 · 15 days · 18 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aripuanã fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 September 2024 and 27 September 2024: 12 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 9,530 hectares (95.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Aripuanã (9,597 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class 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
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.