How long did the Cáceres fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 January 2024 and 29 January 2024: 13 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 6,260 hectares (62.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cáceres (4,057 ha, 0.2 %); Poconé (2,246 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.

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 · 2024-01-17 → 2024-01-29

Cáceres fire, 17 January 2024 Cáceres, Poconé

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2024, 05:45 UTC

The fire started on 17 January 2024 in Cáceres, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,260 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 825th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 519 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area: 6,260ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 17 Jan 2024 – 29 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 17 Jan; 2024
Heat detections: 494; in a single hotspot: 240 MW
Danger at start: 6; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 8.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Jan 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jan29 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

17181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

43km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.9 mm on 6 Feb.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,888 ha in 2020, 375 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,933 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cáceres 89,681 inhabitants where it started

4,057 ha reached on 10 Jan

0.2 %
Poconé 31,217 inhabitants

2,246 ha reached on 23 Jan

0.1 %

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)
10 Jan	36.3 °C	51 %	32 km/h	1.0 mm	Low 6
11 Jan	30.9 °C	69 %	43 km/h	5.8 mm	Very low 0
12 Jan	27.9 °C	75 %	31 km/h	15.3 mm	Very low 0
13 Jan	32.9 °C	58 %	24 km/h	1.9 mm	Very low 0
14 Jan	35.0 °C	53 %	41 km/h	2.5 mm	Very low 1
15 Jan	35.4 °C	52 %	36 km/h	0.7 mm	Very low 4
16 Jan	34.5 °C	56 %	42 km/h	1.0 mm	Very low 4
17 Jan	33.3 °C	59 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	Very low 4
18 Jan	36.5 °C	47 %	32 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 5
19 Jan	35.7 °C	52 %	26 km/h	0.6 mm	Low 6
20 Jan	36.1 °C	47 %	24 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 8
21 Jan	35.0 °C	49 %	28 km/h	1.6 mm	Very low 5
22 Jan	33.0 °C	60 %	35 km/h	16.7 mm	Very low 0
23 Jan	30.9 °C	69 %	23 km/h	15.1 mm	Very low 0
24 Jan	34.6 °C	47 %	22 km/h	0.5 mm	Very low 1
25 Jan	34.8 °C	41 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
26 Jan	35.7 °C	31 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
27 Jan	35.7 °C	28 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
28 Jan	35.2 °C	33 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
29 Jan	35.2 °C	51 %	33 km/h	3.8 mm	Very low 2
30 Jan after	32.2 °C	66 %	22 km/h	12.5 mm	Very low 0
31 Jan after	35.1 °C	51 %	19 km/h	0.2 mm	Very low 2
1 Feb after	34.2 °C	54 %	18 km/h	3.1 mm	Very low 1
2 Feb after	34.4 °C	52 %	26 km/h	9.1 mm	Very low 0
3 Feb after	31.8 °C	64 %	29 km/h	9.2 mm	Very low 0
4 Feb after	32.5 °C	53 %	28 km/h	0.5 mm	Very low 1
5 Feb after	31.8 °C	64 %	27 km/h	5.7 mm	Very low 0
6 Feb after	31.5 °C	64 %	29 km/h	10.9 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Jan 2024

After · 5 Feb 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 22 January 2024 the air beside the fire reached 163 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 4.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak163 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM10233 µg/m³

Optical depth1.21

WHO 15

15161718192021222324252627282930311

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 · 494Every 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 Cáceres fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 January 2024 and 29 January 2024: 13 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 6,260 hectares (62.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cáceres (4,057 ha, 0.2 %); Poconé (2,246 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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 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.

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