Luciara fire, 21 August 2024 Luciara
The fire started on 21 August 2024 in Luciara, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,148 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 598th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 401 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
- Burnt area
- 8,148ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 21 Aug 2024 – 29 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 244
- in a single hotspot: 244 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.9GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,590 ha in 2016, 890 ha in 2017, 1,388 ha in 2018, 4,146 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,324 ha that had burned before.
- 4,146 ha Luciara fire, September 2020 8,416 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,512 ha Luciara fire, September 2016 7,014 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 890 ha Luciara fire, September 2017 3,059 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
8,192 ha reached on 21 Aug1.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Aug | 37.5 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 22 Aug | 39.1 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 23 Aug | 37.2 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 24 Aug | 37.3 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Aug | 37.8 °C | 20 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 Aug | 35.4 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Aug | 38.7 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Aug | 37.8 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 29 Aug | 35.9 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 30 Aug after | 36.3 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 31 Aug after | 37.2 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Sept after | 37.9 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 2 Sept after | 38.0 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 3 Sept after | 38.2 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Sept after | 39.7 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 5 Sept after | 39.5 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 6 Sept after | 39.3 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 7 Sept after | 38.9 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 8 Sept after | 39.1 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 9 Sept after | 38.3 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 10 Sept after | 38.6 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 11 Sept after | 38.6 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 12 Sept after | 39.3 °C | 17 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 13 Sept after | 39.6 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 14 Sept after | 38.9 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 15 Sept after | 40.0 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 7 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 129 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 72: 4.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 244Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Luciara fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 August 2024 and 29 August 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 8,148 hectares (81.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Luciara (8,192 ha, 1.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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
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.