How long did the Bela Vista fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2024 to 4 September 2024 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2024 to 4 September 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,620 hectares (46.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bela Vista (3,503 ha, 0.7 %); Antônio João (1,142 ha, 1.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.

BR · Brazil · 28 Aug 2024 – 4 Sept 2024

Bela Vista fire, 28 August 2024 Bela Vista, Antônio João

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2024, 16:28 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2024 in Bela Vista, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,620 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 324th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 761 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bela Vista · 2021 Pedro Juan Caballero · 2019 Bella Vista · 2021 Bella Vista · 2024

Burnt area: 4,620ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 28 Aug 2024 – 4 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 28 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 180; in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 298MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug4 Sept

Play back 4 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

28 Aug 1 Sept 3 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

37°high

50km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.1 mm on 14 Sept.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 403 ha in 2017, 259 ha in 2019, 3,507 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,599 ha that had burned before.

3,507 ha Bela Vista fire, August 2021 9,089 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.9% of the area of London (46 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

Bela Vista 21,613 inhabitants where it started

3,503 ha reached on 28 Aug

0.7 %
Antônio João 9,303 inhabitants

1,142 ha reached on 3 Sept

1.0 %

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 area0.22 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.22 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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
28 Aug	33.2 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
29 Aug	34.5 °C	21 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
30 Aug	36.0 °C	19 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
31 Aug	33.9 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
1 Sept	26.1 °C	43 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
2 Sept	32.9 °C	22 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
3 Sept	36.7 °C	16 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Sept	34.8 °C	22 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Sept after	24.6 °C	42 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
6 Sept after	30.4 °C	36 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
7 Sept after	37.0 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Sept after	38.0 °C	16 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
9 Sept after	37.1 °C	16 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
10 Sept after	36.2 °C	15 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
11 Sept after	37.1 °C	16 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
12 Sept after	33.4 °C	24 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 Sept after	34.2 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Sept after	24.4 °C	65 %	31 km/h	11.1 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Aug 2024

After · 11 Sept 2024

Before After

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 5 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 93 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak93 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM10133 µg/m³

Optical depth3.64

WHO 15

29 Aug31 Aug2 Sept4 Sept6 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 · 180Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bela Vista fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2024 to 4 September 2024 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2024 to 4 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,620 hectares (46.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bela Vista (3,503 ha, 0.7 %); Antônio João (1,142 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Start date: 31 August 2024 → 28 August 2024.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 31 August 2024 to 4 September 2024. 180 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.

Where it burned