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Grajaú fire, August 2024 Grajaú

Out · last detection 6 Sept 2024, 15:54 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2024 in Grajaú, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,616 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 422th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 1028 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
3,616ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
28 Aug 2024 – 5 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2024
Heat detections
139
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug5 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

28293031123456

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
44km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 624 ha in 2016, 2,121 ha in 2017, 767 ha in 2018, 2,271 ha in 2019, 1,568 ha in 2020, 1,980 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,307 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Grajaú 73,872 inhabitants where it started
    3,640 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
28 Aug 37.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug 34.7 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug 35.7 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Aug 36.0 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Sept 36.2 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Sept 36.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Sept 36.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept 36.8 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept 36.6 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Sept after 35.7 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Sept after 36.8 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept after 36.0 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Sept after 36.0 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Sept after 36.8 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Sept after 36.5 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Sept after 37.1 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Sept after 37.4 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Sept after 37.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept after 37.2 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept after 37.6 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept after 37.5 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept after 36.8 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept after 36.9 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Sept after 37.5 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Sept after 36.8 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Sept after 36.8 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2024
After · 12 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 3 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1043 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
26272829303112345678
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 · 139Every 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 Grajaú fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 August 2024 and 5 September 2024: 9 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 3,616 hectares (36.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Grajaú (3,640 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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

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.