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Formosa fire, 12 September 2024 Formosa, Brasília

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2024, 04:53 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2024 in Formosa, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,212 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 191th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 548 with a page). Number 526 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
6,212ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
12 Sept 2024 – 16 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
12 Sept
2024
Heat detections
190
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
45km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,610 ha in 2017, 1,271 ha in 2019, 14 ha in 2020, 2,055 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,141 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Formosa 115,901 inhabitants where it started
    6,225 ha reached on 8 Sept
    1.1 %
  2. Brasília 47,045 inhabitants
    37 ha
    0.0 %

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)
8 Sept 29.4 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Sept 29.5 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Sept 29.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Sept 29.4 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Sept 30.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept 30.3 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Sept 30.7 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Sept 31.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept 33.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Sept after 33.8 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept after 31.1 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Sept after 30.9 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Sept after 30.8 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept after 32.3 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Sept after 32.8 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept after 33.4 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Sept after 32.8 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Sept after 32.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Sept after 33.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Sept after 34.5 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2024
After · 23 Sept 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 6 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1039 µg/m³
Optical depth0.54
67891011121314151617181920
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 · 190Every 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 Formosa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 September 2024 and 16 September 2024: 5 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 6,212 hectares (62.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Formosa (6,225 ha, 1.1 %); Brasília (37 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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
What do you think is wrong?

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.