How long did the Delfinópolis fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 July 2024 and 9 July 2024: 7 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 3,495 hectares (35.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Delfinópolis (3,513 ha, 2.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, class 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 · 2024-07-03 → 2024-07-09

Delfinópolis fire, July 2024 Delfinópolis

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2024, 05:07 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2024 in Delfinópolis, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,495 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 158th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 1071 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area: 3,495ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 3 Jul 2024 – 9 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 3 Jul; 2024
Heat detections: 103; in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 463MW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Jul 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

456789

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

The weather it burned in

26°high

31km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 84 ha in 2016, 185 ha in 2017, 1,786 ha in 2018, 1,464 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,248 ha that had burned before.

185 ha Delfinópolis fire, August 2017 3,158 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Delfinópolis 8,393 inhabitants where it started

3,513 ha reached on 4 Jul

2.5 %

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	Danger (FWI)
3 Jul	24.8 °C	35 %	18 km/h	Moderate 18
4 Jul	25.1 °C	28 %	21 km/h	High 24
5 Jul	24.5 °C	30 %	18 km/h	High 24
6 Jul	25.3 °C	34 %	18 km/h	High 24
7 Jul	26.0 °C	32 %	23 km/h	High 26
8 Jul	26.3 °C	33 %	31 km/h	High 26
9 Jul	26.2 °C	37 %	25 km/h	High 27
10 Jul after	26.3 °C	38 %	29 km/h	High 28
11 Jul after	27.8 °C	32 %	26 km/h	High 26
12 Jul after	26.8 °C	34 %	22 km/h	High 27
13 Jul after	23.9 °C	43 %	42 km/h	High 31
14 Jul after	23.8 °C	38 %	24 km/h	High 24
15 Jul after	24.4 °C	31 %	18 km/h	High 24
16 Jul after	24.2 °C	33 %	29 km/h	High 26
17 Jul after	24.8 °C	27 %	16 km/h	High 25
18 Jul after	25.0 °C	32 %	19 km/h	High 27
19 Jul after	25.4 °C	32 %	20 km/h	High 27

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Jun 2024

After · 16 Jul 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 10 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1032 µg/m³

Optical depth0.50

WHO 15

123456789101112

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 · 103Every 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 Delfinópolis fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 July 2024 and 9 July 2024: 7 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 3,495 hectares (35.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Delfinópolis (3,513 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, class 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

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 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?

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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