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Cuiabá fire, 22 August 2024 Cuiabá

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2024, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 22 August 2024 in Cuiabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,419 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1708th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 1095 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
3,419ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
22 Aug 2024 – 23 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Aug
2024
Heat detections
117
in a single hotspot: 132 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2223

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
46km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 805 ha in 2018, 924 ha in 2019, 124 ha in 2020, 1,622 ha in 2021, 981 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,475 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuiabá where it started
    3,440 ha reached on 22 Aug
    1.0 %

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 Aug 38.4 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Aug 37.8 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Aug 38.8 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Aug 39.4 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Aug 39.2 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Aug 38.9 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
21 Aug 38.5 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 Aug 38.9 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
23 Aug 38.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Aug after 29.5 °C 42 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug after 21.5 °C 50 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug after 26.0 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Aug after 34.3 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Aug after 38.1 °C 17 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug after 38.7 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Aug after 38.0 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
31 Aug after 38.2 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept after 36.2 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept after 37.4 °C 16 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2024
After · 30 Aug 2024

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 23 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 127 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 70: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak127 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10181 µg/m³
Optical depth2.08
20212223242526
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 · 117Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cuiabá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 August 2024 and 23 August 2024: 2 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 3,419 hectares (34.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuiabá (3,440 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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
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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.