Barra do Garças fire, 18 August 2024 Barra do Garças
The fire started on 18 August 2024 in Barra do Garças, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,063 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 860th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 542 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 6,063ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 18 Aug 2024 – 2 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 148
- in a single hotspot: 95 MW
- Danger at start
- 57
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 97MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,254 ha in 2016, 216 ha in 2017, 1,526 ha in 2018, 147 ha in 2019, 5,344 ha in 2020, 565 ha in 2021, 4,024 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,947 ha that had burned before.
- 5,159 ha Barra do Garças fire, August 2020 14,771 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,254 ha Barra do Garças fire, September 2016 14,094 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,024 ha Barra do Garças fire, August 2022 44,194 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,526 ha Barra do Garças fire, September 2018 4,867 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 173 ha Barra do Garças fire, August 2017 32,992 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 46 ha Barra do Garças fire, August 2020 34,357 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 43 ha Barra do Garças fire, August 2017 6,188 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
6,098 ha reached on 18 Aug0.7 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug | 35.7 °C | 7 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 19 Aug | 35.8 °C | 6 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 20 Aug | 35.6 °C | 9 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 Aug | 35.0 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 22 Aug | 36.2 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 23 Aug | 36.9 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Aug | 35.8 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 25 Aug | 30.0 °C | 35 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Aug | 30.4 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 27 Aug | 34.4 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Aug | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 29 Aug | 34.8 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 30 Aug | 34.6 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 31 Aug | 36.2 °C | 6 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 Sept | 36.8 °C | 6 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 2 Sept | 36.9 °C | 2 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 3 Sept after | 36.8 °C | 3 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 4 Sept after | 37.7 °C | 3 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 5 Sept after | 38.3 °C | 8 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 6 Sept after | 37.0 °C | 6 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 7 Sept after | 37.7 °C | 4 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 8 Sept after | 37.2 °C | 3 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 9 Sept after | 36.4 °C | 3 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 10 Sept after | 36.2 °C | 3 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 11 Sept after | 36.8 °C | 8 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 12 Sept after | 37.5 °C | 7 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
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 24 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 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 · 148Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 44,194 haBarra do Garças16 August 2022 · 24 days · 16 km away
- 34,357 haBarra do Garças28 August 2020 · 22 days · 16 km away
- 32,992 haBarra do Garças31 August 2017 · 20 days · 17 km away
- 77,877 haNovo São Joaquim6 August 2026 · 31 days · 24 km away
- 34,750 haBarra do Garças20 August 2024 · 22 days · 34 km away
- 30,484 haBarra do Garças8 September 2016 · 11 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Barra do Garças fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 August 2024 to 2 September 2024 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 August 2024 to 30 August 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,063 hectares (60.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barra do Garças (6,098 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 2 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
- 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 30 August 2024 → 2 September 2024.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 August 2024 to 30 August 2024. 148 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.