Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · –

Iracema fire, 8 March 2024 Iracema

Out · last detection 23 Mar 2024, 05:27 UTC

The fire started on 8 March 2024 in Iracema, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,391 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 45th largest in Roraima since 2016 (of 111 with a page). Number 620 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
5,391ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
8 Mar 2024 – 22 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Mar
2024
Heat detections
240
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
156MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Mar22 Mar
23 Mar 2024

How it evolved, day by day

8 Mar 2024 · 763 MW · 67 9 Mar 2024 · 105 MW · 23 10 Mar 2024 · 332 MW · 32 11 Mar 2024 · 322 MW · 56 12 Mar 2024 · 91 MW · 30 13 Mar 2024 · 152 MW · 13 14 Mar 2024 · 7 MW · 3 18 Mar 2024 · 2 MW · 1 19 Mar 2024 · 9 MW · 2 20 Mar 2024 · 71 MW · 7 21 Mar 2024 · 3 MW · 1 23 Mar 2024 · 17 MW · 5
8 Mar 11 Mar 14 Mar 20 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
54km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 29 Mar.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,889 ha in 2016, 2,628 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,231 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.4% of the area of London (54 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

  1. Iracema where it started
    5,427 ha reached on 8 Mar
    0.4 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.09 hectares of built-up land and about 50 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)
8 Mar 33.6 °C 49 % 37 km/h 4.4 mm Moderate 17
9 Mar 36.3 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 12
10 Mar 36.7 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Mar 37.4 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Mar 33.0 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Mar 36.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Mar 38.0 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Mar 38.2 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 35
16 Mar 33.1 °C 49 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Mar 35.4 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
18 Mar 36.7 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Mar 35.9 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Mar 37.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Mar 37.6 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Mar 37.4 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Mar after 36.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Mar after 34.1 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Mar after 35.5 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
26 Mar after 35.4 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
27 Mar after 38.3 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Mar after 32.0 °C 53 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm High 24
29 Mar after 35.7 °C 44 % 29 km/h 2.6 mm High 25

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 16.7, a minimum humidity of 49% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 8.

FWI at the start 16.7
Minimum humidity 49 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Iracema fire, February 2024
10,677 ha 22 days FWI 18.7 Min. humidity 40 % 13 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 6 Mar.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 8. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.6 mmfirst rain
29 Mar7 days after it ended
54km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 22 Mar, and on 29 Mar 2.6 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Mar 2024
After · 29 Mar 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 12 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak63 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1087 µg/m³
Optical depth0.70
6 Mar9 Mar12 Mar15 Mar18 Mar
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 · 240Every 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 Iracema fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 March 2024 to 22 March 2024 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 March 2024 to 15 March 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,391 hectares (53.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Iracema (5,427 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 15 March 2024 → 22 March 2024.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 March 2024 to 15 March 2024. 240 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.