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Guará fire, September 2024 Guará, Ituverava

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2024, 16:28 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2024 in Guará, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,135 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 52th largest in São Paulo since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 875 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
4,135ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
20 Sept 2024 – 20 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
20 Sept
2024
Heat detections
106
in a single hotspot: 76 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

20

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
38km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 694 ha in 2016, 520 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Guará 18,606 inhabitants where it started
    2,663 ha reached on 20 Sept
    7.3 %
  2. Ituverava 37,571 inhabitants
    1,494 ha reached on 20 Sept
    2.1 %

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)
20 Sept 35.4 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44
21 Sept after 33.0 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Sept after 35.4 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept after 36.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Sept after 36.6 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Sept after 36.4 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Sept after 37.1 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Sept after 35.2 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Sept after 34.4 °C 30 % 30 km/h 1.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Sept 2024
After · 27 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 21 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak47 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1068 µg/m³
Optical depth1.24
181920212223
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 · 106Every 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 Guará fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 September 2024 and 20 September 2024: 1 day 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 4,135 hectares (41.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Guará (2,663 ha, 7.3 %); Ituverava (1,494 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.