Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · –

Barreiras fire, 4 September 2024 Barreiras

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2024, 16:43 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2024 in Barreiras, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,393 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 185th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 386 with a page). Number 619 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
5,393ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
4 Sept 2024 – 14 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2024
Heat detections
153
in a single hotspot: 110 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
177MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept14 Sept
14 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

4 Sept 2024 · 73 MW · 5 5 Sept 2024 · 98 MW · 7 6 Sept 2024 · 679 MW · 28 7 Sept 2024 · 529 MW · 49 8 Sept 2024 · 163 MW · 53 9 Sept 2024 · 28 MW · 6 11 Sept 2024 · 3 MW · 1 13 Sept 2024 · 1 MW · 1 14 Sept 2024 · 23 MW · 3
4 Sept 6 Sept 8 Sept 11 Sept 14 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high
40km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,537 ha in 2021, 161 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.4% of the area of London (54 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Barreiras 159,734 inhabitants where it started
    5,425 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.7 %

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 2025
Built-up area0.24 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.24 hectares of 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)

Started with Very dry air: 6.3 % of the area in Brazil 60 days without rain: 55 % of the area in Brazil

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
4 Sept 35.0 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Sept 33.7 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept 33.9 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Sept 33.6 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept 32.4 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Sept 31.8 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Sept 31.9 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept 32.5 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Sept 32.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Sept 32.1 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Sept 31.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept after 33.3 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept after 34.2 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 35.9 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept after 33.8 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Sept after 32.7 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Sept after 33.8 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept after 34.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Sept after 34.7 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Sept after 35.2 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Sept after 35.4 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 47.0, a minimum humidity of 12% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 43.

FWI at the start 47.0
Minimum humidity 12 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Formosa do Rio Preto fire, September 2025
5,545 ha 10 days FWI 48.8 Min. humidity 13 % 130 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

9 days
median duration
4,600 ha
median area
14 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 43 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (5,393 ha against a median of 4,600 ha) and lasted 11 days, against 9 days.

In 22 of 43, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.8 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
40km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 43, with a median of 2.8 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2024
After · 21 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 4 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1039 µg/m³
Optical depth0.59
2 Sept6 Sept10 Sept14 Sept
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 · 153Every 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 Barreiras fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 September 2024 to 14 September 2024 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2024 to 9 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,393 hectares (53.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barreiras (5,425 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 43. Their median duration was 9 days and their median area 4,600 ha; 14 % went past 10,000 ha. In 22 of 43, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.8 mm.

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.
  1. Last day with fire: 9 September 2024 → 14 September 2024.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

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 4 September 2024 to 9 September 2024. 153 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.