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Matões fire, May 2024 Matões

Out · last detection 15 Jun 2024, 04:12 UTC

The fire started on 27 May 2024 in Matões, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,442 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 468th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 1086 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
3,442ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
27 May 2024 – 15 Jun 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 May
2024
Heat detections
239
in a single hotspot: 144 MW
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jun 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 May15 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

272829456789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
49km/h · peak gust
45%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 817 ha in 2016, 2,283 ha in 2017, 1,344 ha in 2019, 863 ha in 2020, 137 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,014 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Matões 32,174 inhabitants where it started
    3,465 ha reached on 20 May
    1.6 %

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 May 31.8 °C 53 % 28 km/h 1.2 mm Low 10
21 May 32.0 °C 52 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 15
22 May 31.5 °C 55 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
23 May 31.6 °C 53 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
24 May 32.5 °C 49 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
25 May 33.5 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
26 May 31.9 °C 54 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 16
27 May 32.1 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
28 May 32.2 °C 46 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 May 32.7 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 May 32.7 °C 49 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
31 May 31.0 °C 55 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
1 Jun 31.9 °C 49 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
2 Jun 32.0 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Jun 31.0 °C 56 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 Jun 32.4 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Jun 32.0 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
6 Jun 31.3 °C 56 % 41 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 17
7 Jun 31.4 °C 50 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Jun 30.9 °C 57 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
9 Jun 31.5 °C 53 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Jun 32.3 °C 47 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Jun 31.1 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Jun 31.9 °C 48 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Jun 32.1 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Jun 30.2 °C 56 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
15 Jun 30.6 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Jun after 29.8 °C 51 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
17 Jun after 30.9 °C 49 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
18 Jun after 32.0 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Jun after 31.7 °C 45 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Jun after 31.6 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Jun after 30.4 °C 51 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Jun after 31.1 °C 49 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Jun after 31.4 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Jun after 29.7 °C 54 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
25 Jun after 33.3 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Jun after 32.6 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Jun after 32.6 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Jun after 31.7 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Jun after 33.6 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 May 2024
After · 22 Jun 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 11 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 43 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak43 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1061 µg/m³
Optical depth0.37
25262728293031123456789101112131415161718
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 · 239Every 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 Matões fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 May 2024 and 15 June 2024: 20 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 3,442 hectares (34.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Matões (3,465 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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.