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Aripuanã fire, October 2024 Aripuanã

Out · last detection 13 Oct 2024, 17:39 UTC

The fire started on 5 October 2024 in Aripuanã, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,852 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1486th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 953 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
3,852ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
5 Oct 2024 – 14 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Oct
2024
Heat detections
222
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Oct 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Oct14 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

56789101213

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
32km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 15 Oct.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 211 ha in 2016, 1,382 ha in 2019, 2,864 ha in 2020, 3,587 ha in 2021, 3,517 ha in 2022, 3,180 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,771 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Aripuanã 25,766 inhabitants where it started
    3,873 ha reached on 4 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
4 Oct 34.0 °C 52 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
5 Oct 34.7 °C 48 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
6 Oct 35.6 °C 41 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
7 Oct 33.7 °C 46 % 25 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 14
8 Oct 35.4 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Oct 36.6 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
10 Oct 35.1 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Oct 36.4 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Oct 38.2 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Oct 36.7 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
14 Oct 36.1 °C 35 % 23 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 17
15 Oct after 31.6 °C 52 % 23 km/h 2.1 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Sept 2024
After · 21 Oct 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 11 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak58 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM1084 µg/m³
Optical depth1.83
34567891011121314151617
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 · 222Every 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 Aripuanã fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2024 and 14 October 2024: 10 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 3,852 hectares (38.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aripuanã (3,873 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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
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.