How long did the Nova Lacerda fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 August 2024 to 18 September 2024 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2024 to 11 September 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,897 hectares (99.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nova Lacerda (7,172 ha, 1.5 %); Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade (2,774 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · 2024-08-16 → 2024-09-18

Nova Lacerda fire, 16 August 2024 Nova Lacerda, Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2024, 04:35 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2024 in Nova Lacerda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,897 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 472th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 324 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade · 2020 Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade · 2022 Nova Lacerda · 2020

Burnt area: 9,897ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 34days; 16 Aug 2024 – 18 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 16 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 608; in a single hotspot: 179 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 274MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug18 Sept

Play back 18 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

16 Aug 23 Aug 27 Aug 31 Aug 1 Sept 4 Sept 9 Sept 15 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

39°high

51km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 40 ha in 2016, 1,075 ha in 2018, 5,154 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,265 ha that had burned before.

2,125 ha Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade fire, September 2020 3,825 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 6.3% of the area of London (99 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

Nova Lacerda 6,670 inhabitants where it started

7,172 ha reached on 16 Aug

1.5 %
Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade 52,018 inhabitants

2,774 ha reached on 28 Aug

0.2 %

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 area0.12 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.12 hectares of 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	Rain	Danger (FWI)
16 Aug	36.7 °C	26 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Aug	37.6 °C	29 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
18 Aug	37.1 °C	28 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
19 Aug	36.6 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
20 Aug	37.9 °C	24 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
21 Aug	37.9 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Aug	38.2 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
23 Aug	34.7 °C	29 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
24 Aug	30.1 °C	42 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Aug	23.6 °C	39 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Aug	27.7 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
27 Aug	33.4 °C	25 %	14 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
28 Aug	36.0 °C	22 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
29 Aug	38.3 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Aug	36.9 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
31 Aug	36.5 °C	24 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
1 Sept	32.8 °C	33 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
2 Sept	37.2 °C	20 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
3 Sept	37.1 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
4 Sept	36.2 °C	34 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Sept	31.3 °C	36 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
6 Sept	36.4 °C	24 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Sept	37.6 °C	18 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Sept	37.7 °C	20 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Sept	38.6 °C	20 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Sept	38.3 °C	23 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Sept	36.7 °C	31 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
12 Sept	35.0 °C	37 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Sept	36.0 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Sept	33.9 °C	41 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
15 Sept	29.7 °C	52 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Sept	30.6 °C	49 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
17 Sept	35.7 °C	35 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
18 Sept	37.0 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
19 Sept after	36.2 °C	37 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
20 Sept after	37.3 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Sept after	37.1 °C	32 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
22 Sept after	37.7 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Sept after	37.5 °C	35 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
24 Sept after	37.1 °C	33 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
25 Sept after	37.9 °C	33 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
26 Sept after	36.4 °C	40 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Sept after	31.0 °C	45 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
28 Sept after	36.2 °C	32 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Aug 2024

After · 25 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 237 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 155: 10 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak237 µg/m³

Days over the guideline39 days

PM10339 µg/m³

Optical depth5.39

WHO 15

141516171819202122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021

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 · 608Every 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 Nova Lacerda fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 August 2024 to 18 September 2024 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2024 to 11 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,897 hectares (99.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nova Lacerda (7,172 ha, 1.5 %); Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade (2,774 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 11 September 2024 → 18 September 2024.
25 October 2026 Start date: 23 August 2024 → 16 August 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.

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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?

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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 August 2024 to 11 September 2024. 608 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