How long did the Dourado fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2024 and 24 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 3,870 hectares (38.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dourado (3,856 ha, 19 %); Bocaina (32 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 58 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.

BR · Brazil · 2024-08-23 → 2024-08-24

Dourado fire, August 2024 Dourado, Bocaina

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2024, 16:34 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2024 in Dourado, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,870 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 63th largest in São Paulo since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 950 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Jaú · 2020 Ribeirão Bonito · 2024 Boa Esperança do Sul · 2024 Boa Esperança do Sul · 2024

Burnt area: 3,870ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 2days; 23 Aug 2024 – 24 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 23 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 151; in a single hotspot: 193 MW
Danger at start: 64; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 3.4GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug24 Aug

Play back 24 Aug 2024

How it evolved, day by day

23 Aug 24 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

58km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 403 ha in 2020.

403 ha Jaú fire, September 2020 4,715 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.4% of the area of London (39 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

Dourado 8,096 inhabitants where it started

3,856 ha reached on 23 Aug

19 %
Bocaina 11,259 inhabitants

32 ha

0.1 %

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 area5.0 ha

Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 5.0 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (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)
23 Aug	35.3 °C	14 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
24 Aug	30.8 °C	31 %	58 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 52
25 Aug after	16.8 °C	73 %	27 km/h	6.6 mm	Very low 0
26 Aug after	21.6 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
27 Aug after	27.6 °C	12 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
28 Aug after	30.8 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
29 Aug after	32.3 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
30 Aug after	33.2 °C	13 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
31 Aug after	34.2 °C	7 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 Sept after	35.6 °C	7 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
2 Sept after	34.7 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
3 Sept after	36.6 °C	4 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
4 Sept after	37.0 °C	9 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
5 Sept after	36.5 °C	10 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 68
6 Sept after	33.6 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
7 Sept after	36.0 °C	14 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
8 Sept after	36.6 °C	12 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
9 Sept after	36.1 °C	14 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
10 Sept after	35.2 °C	12 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Aug 2024

After · 31 Aug 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 24 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 137 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 63: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak137 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM10196 µg/m³

Optical depth2.57

WHO 15

21222324252627

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 · 151Every 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 Dourado fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2024 and 24 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 3,870 hectares (38.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dourado (3,856 ha, 19 %); Bocaina (32 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 58 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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.

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 151 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