How long did the Luciara fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 August 2024 to 4 September 2024 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2024 to 29 August 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,636 hectares (36.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Luciara (3,658 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2024-08-23 → 2024-09-04

Luciara fire, 23 August 2024 Luciara

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2024, 16:31 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2024 in Luciara, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,636 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1600th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 1018 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Luciara · 2017 Luciara · 2020 Luciara · 2024 Lagoa da Confusão · 2026

Burnt area: 3,636ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 23 Aug 2024 – 4 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 23 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 112; in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start: 52; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 106MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug4 Sept

Play back 4 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

23 Aug 25 Aug 27 Aug 29 Aug 31 Aug 2 Sept 4 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

40°high

48km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 805 ha in 2016, 2,698 ha in 2017, 1,293 ha in 2020, 971 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,400 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 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

Luciara 2,509 inhabitants where it started

3,658 ha reached on 23 Aug

0.9 %

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< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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	Danger (FWI)
23 Aug	37.5 °C	20 %	38 km/h	Extreme 52
24 Aug	37.6 °C	17 %	30 km/h	Very high 47
25 Aug	38.1 °C	19 %	25 km/h	Very high 44
26 Aug	35.4 °C	26 %	35 km/h	Very high 48
27 Aug	38.8 °C	18 %	28 km/h	Very high 45
28 Aug	38.0 °C	21 %	44 km/h	Extreme 57
29 Aug	35.9 °C	21 %	48 km/h	Extreme 60
30 Aug	36.5 °C	27 %	41 km/h	Very high 50
31 Aug	37.4 °C	19 %	35 km/h	Very high 47
1 Sept	38.1 °C	20 %	29 km/h	Very high 43
2 Sept	38.0 °C	17 %	32 km/h	Very high 50
3 Sept	38.3 °C	15 %	28 km/h	Very high 48
4 Sept	40.0 °C	11 %	31 km/h	Extreme 55
5 Sept after	39.7 °C	12 %	36 km/h	Extreme 56
6 Sept after	39.7 °C	10 %	36 km/h	Extreme 59
7 Sept after	39.3 °C	13 %	32 km/h	Extreme 56
8 Sept after	39.3 °C	14 %	39 km/h	Extreme 60
9 Sept after	38.5 °C	17 %	42 km/h	Extreme 60
10 Sept after	38.8 °C	16 %	32 km/h	Extreme 55
11 Sept after	38.7 °C	16 %	34 km/h	Extreme 57
12 Sept after	39.6 °C	15 %	43 km/h	Extreme 61
13 Sept after	40.0 °C	13 %	41 km/h	Extreme 61
14 Sept after	39.4 °C	14 %	40 km/h	Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Aug 2024

After · 11 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 24 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak84 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM10120 µg/m³

Optical depth1.07

WHO 15

21222324252627282930311

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 · 112Every 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 Luciara fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 August 2024 to 4 September 2024 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2024 to 29 August 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,636 hectares (36.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Luciara (3,658 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 29 August 2024 → 4 September 2024.

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 23 August 2024 to 29 August 2024. 112 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