How long did the Cáceres fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 September 2024 to 15 October 2024 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 September 2024 to 9 October 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,862 hectares (128.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cáceres (12,952 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 41.5 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2024-09-21 → 2024-10-15

Cáceres fire, 21 September 2024 Cáceres

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2024, 17:00 UTC

The fire started on 21 September 2024 in Cáceres, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,862 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 339th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 233 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cáceres · 2020 Cáceres · 2023 Cáceres · 2024

Burnt area: 12,862ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 25days; 21 Sept 2024 – 15 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 21 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 869; in a single hotspot: 304 MW
Danger at start: 33; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 911MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Sept15 Oct

Play back 15 Oct 2024

How it evolved, day by day

23 Sept 24 Sept 28 Sept 1 Oct 4 Oct 8 Oct 13 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

42°high

44km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 16 Oct.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,747 ha in 2020, 107 ha in 2023.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.1% of the area of London (129 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

Cáceres 89,681 inhabitants where it started

12,952 ha reached on 23 Sept

0.5 %

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 area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside 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)
21 Sept	38.5 °C	29 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
22 Sept	41.2 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
23 Sept	40.8 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
24 Sept	40.3 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
25 Sept	40.9 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
26 Sept	37.2 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.6 mm	High 36
27 Sept	25.6 °C	59 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
28 Sept	34.8 °C	34 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
29 Sept	39.8 °C	24 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 Sept	38.9 °C	33 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
1 Oct	40.3 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
2 Oct	39.8 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
3 Oct	33.9 °C	45 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Oct	37.2 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Oct	40.5 °C	30 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
6 Oct	41.5 °C	22 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
7 Oct	40.0 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
8 Oct	40.8 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Oct	37.3 °C	37 %	38 km/h	1.0 mm	High 29
10 Oct	34.7 °C	46 %	31 km/h	0.3 mm	High 30
11 Oct	34.9 °C	46 %	44 km/h	1.2 mm	High 24
12 Oct	37.4 °C	35 %	25 km/h	0.9 mm	High 27
13 Oct	38.3 °C	33 %	29 km/h	2.7 mm	Moderate 21
14 Oct	37.0 °C	39 %	23 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 21
15 Oct	39.4 °C	30 %	28 km/h	1.0 mm	High 29
16 Oct after	34.8 °C	43 %	31 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Sept 2024

After · 22 Oct 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 6 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 426 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 246: 16 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak426 µg/m³

Days over the guideline31 days

PM10611 µg/m³

Optical depth6.41

WHO 15

18192021222324252627282930123456789101112131415161718

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 · 869Every 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?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 September 2024 to 15 October 2024 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 September 2024 to 9 October 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,862 hectares (128.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cáceres (12,952 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 41.5 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 9 October 2024 → 15 October 2024.
25 October 2026 Start date: 28 September 2024 → 21 September 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.

Report an error

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 28 September 2024 to 9 October 2024. 869 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