How long did the Ibiraci fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2024 and 5 September 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 3,806 hectares (38.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ibiraci (3,060 ha, 5.4 %); Cássia (764 ha, 1.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2024-08-30 → 2024-09-05

Ibiraci fire, August 2024 Ibiraci, Cássia

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2024, 16:09 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2024 in Ibiraci, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,806 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 132th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 969 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Delfinópolis · 2024 Delfinópolis · 2020 Delfinópolis · 2026 São Roque de Minas · 2016

Burnt area: 3,806ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 30 Aug 2024 – 5 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 30 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 187; in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 350MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug5 Sept

Play back 5 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

31 Aug 1 Sept 2 Sept 3 Sept 4 Sept 5 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

36km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,914 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.4% of the area of London (38 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

Ibiraci 10,948 inhabitants where it started

3,060 ha reached on 31 Aug

5.4 %
Cássia 17,155 inhabitants

764 ha reached on 2 Sept

1.1 %

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 area3.3 ha

Residents≈ 80

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.3 hectares of built-up land and about 80 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)
25 Aug	20.9 °C	46 %	35 km/h	0.4 mm	High 29
26 Aug	21.3 °C	48 %	23 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 16
27 Aug	25.7 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
28 Aug	26.7 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
29 Aug	26.9 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
30 Aug	26.9 °C	26 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
31 Aug	28.0 °C	25 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Sept	29.8 °C	15 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
2 Sept	29.6 °C	16 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
3 Sept	30.8 °C	16 %	14 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
4 Sept	29.9 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Sept	31.2 °C	14 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
6 Sept after	31.9 °C	20 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Sept after	30.6 °C	25 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Sept after	30.2 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
9 Sept after	29.5 °C	22 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Sept after	29.1 °C	26 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
11 Sept after	29.7 °C	25 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
12 Sept after	30.6 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
13 Sept after	29.2 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 Sept after	29.2 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
15 Sept after	30.1 °C	27 %	29 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 · 23 Aug 2024

After · 12 Sept 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 4 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak63 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM1090 µg/m³

Optical depth1.33

WHO 15

2829303112345678

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 · 187Every 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 Ibiraci fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2024 and 5 September 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 3,806 hectares (38.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ibiraci (3,060 ha, 5.4 %); Cássia (764 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 · 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. 187 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