Cáceres fire, 15 January 2024 Cáceres, Poconé
The fire started on 15 January 2024 in Cáceres, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,341 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 247th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 182 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
- Burnt area
- 16,341ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 34days
- 15 Jan 2024 – 17 Feb 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Jan
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 1,598
- in a single hotspot: 197 MW
- Danger at start
- 2
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 20.6GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 29.3 mm on 18 Feb.
This area had burned before
9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,272 ha in 2020, 12 ha in 2021, 3 ha in 2022, 334 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,420 ha that had burned before.
- 334 ha Barão de Melgaço fire, October 2023 464,290 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 314 ha Corumbá fire, June 2020 312,925 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12 ha Cáceres fire, October 2021 5,384 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Poconé fire, December 2022 7,298 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
16,343 ha reached on 15 Jan0.7 %
-
Poconé 31,217 inhabitants165 ha reached on 28 Jan0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Jan | 34.7 °C | 56 % | 36 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very low 2 |
| 16 Jan | 33.7 °C | 58 % | 42 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very low 4 |
| 17 Jan | 32.3 °C | 63 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 18 Jan | 35.6 °C | 52 % | 34 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 6 |
| 19 Jan | 35.0 °C | 54 % | 26 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 5 |
| 20 Jan | 35.8 °C | 49 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 21 Jan | 35.3 °C | 48 % | 26 km/h | 2.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 22 Jan | 31.2 °C | 65 % | 32 km/h | 21.1 mm | Very low 0 |
| 23 Jan | 31.1 °C | 69 % | 20 km/h | 18.6 mm | Very low 0 |
| 24 Jan | 34.8 °C | 45 % | 20 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 1 |
| 25 Jan | 34.0 °C | 44 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 26 Jan | 35.4 °C | 33 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 27 Jan | 34.9 °C | 34 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 28 Jan | 34.6 °C | 39 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 29 Jan | 33.9 °C | 56 % | 32 km/h | 1.9 mm | Very low 4 |
| 30 Jan | 31.6 °C | 69 % | 21 km/h | 12.1 mm | Very low 0 |
| 31 Jan | 35.0 °C | 50 % | 17 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 1 |
| 1 Feb | 33.8 °C | 53 % | 17 km/h | 1.8 mm | Very low 1 |
| 2 Feb | 33.2 °C | 60 % | 24 km/h | 5.3 mm | Very low 0 |
| 3 Feb | 31.2 °C | 68 % | 28 km/h | 15.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 4 Feb | 32.4 °C | 55 % | 27 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very low 1 |
| 5 Feb | 30.0 °C | 71 % | 25 km/h | 12.2 mm | Very low 0 |
| 6 Feb | 31.5 °C | 66 % | 26 km/h | 11.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 7 Feb | 33.0 °C | 63 % | 31 km/h | 5.6 mm | Very low 0 |
| 8 Feb | 31.2 °C | 64 % | 31 km/h | 1.1 mm | Very low 0 |
| 9 Feb | 34.6 °C | 56 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 10 Feb | 28.8 °C | 80 % | 22 km/h | 3.2 mm | Very low 0 |
| 11 Feb | 33.2 °C | 55 % | 22 km/h | 3.3 mm | Very low 0 |
| 12 Feb | 31.7 °C | 62 % | 39 km/h | 6.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 13 Feb | 31.8 °C | 58 % | 32 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very low 1 |
| 14 Feb | 32.7 °C | 60 % | 19 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very low 2 |
| 15 Feb | 34.0 °C | 57 % | 20 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 3 |
| 16 Feb | 33.9 °C | 55 % | 19 km/h | 3.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 17 Feb | 32.6 °C | 63 % | 26 km/h | 1.8 mm | Very low 1 |
| 18 Feb after | 30.0 °C | 71 % | 31 km/h | 29.3 mm | Very low 0 |
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 10 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 332 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 156: 10 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 · 1,598Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cáceres fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 January 2024 and 17 February 2024: 34 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 16,341 hectares (163.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cáceres (16,343 ha, 0.7 %); Poconé (165 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, class Low.
- 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.