Cuiabá fire, July 2024 Cuiabá
The fire started on 25 July 2024 in Cuiabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,631 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 439th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 302 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
- Burnt area
- 10,631ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 25 Jul 2024 – 4 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 246
- in a single hotspot: 203 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.8GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,129 ha in 2017, 99 ha in 2018, 9,150 ha in 2019, 2,996 ha in 2020, 7,199 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,290 ha that had burned before.
- 9,137 ha Cuiabá fire, August 2019 16,469 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,750 ha Cuiabá fire, September 2017 5,080 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,960 ha Cuiabá fire, August 2022 4,724 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 99 ha Cuiabá fire, September 2018 4,763 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cuiabá where it started10,688 ha reached on 29 Jul3.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jul | 34.2 °C | 23 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Jul | 34.8 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 27 Jul | 34.7 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 28 Jul | 34.0 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Jul | 34.7 °C | 24 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 30 Jul | 29.6 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 31 Jul | 35.6 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Aug | 36.1 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 2 Aug | 35.4 °C | 20 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 3 Aug | 35.1 °C | 20 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 4 Aug | 34.9 °C | 20 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 5 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 21 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 6 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 20 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 7 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 8 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 9 Aug after | 20.1 °C | 73 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Aug after | 23.3 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 23 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 12 Aug after | 28.7 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 13 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 15 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Aug after | 35.8 °C | 4 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
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 30 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 41 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 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 · 246Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 16,469 haCuiabá30 August 2019 · 13 days · 1 km away
- 30,271 haCuiabá26 August 2024 · 24 days · 13 km away
- 9,227 haChapada dos Guimarães6 September 2024 · 8 days · 23 km away
- 9,276 haAcorizal5 September 2020 · 15 days · 27 km away
- 108,162 haCuiabá23 August 2024 · 27 days · 33 km away
- 8,806 haChapada dos Guimarães29 August 2019 · 16 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cuiabá fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 July 2024 and 4 August 2024: 11 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 10,631 hectares (106.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cuiabá (10,688 ha, 3.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
- 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.