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Paranatinga fire, 13 August 2024 Paranatinga, Nova Ubiratã

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2024, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2024 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 43 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 32,821 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 92th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 89 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
32,821ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
43days
13 Aug 2024 – 24 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
13 Aug
2024
Heat detections
1,517
in a single hotspot: 845 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
36.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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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
48km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.8 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 668 ha in 2016, 5,908 ha in 2017, 9,321 ha in 2019, 1,682 ha in 2020, 7,185 ha in 2021, 2,664 ha in 2022, 759 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,383 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    32,387 ha reached on 14 Aug
    1.3 %
  2. Nova Ubiratã 11,530 inhabitants
    664 ha reached on 22 Aug
    0.0 %

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)
13 Aug 34.7 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug 36.7 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug 36.3 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Aug 35.6 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug 35.8 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug 36.5 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Aug 36.3 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug 36.4 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Aug 35.8 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Aug 36.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Aug 37.4 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Aug 36.6 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Aug 31.3 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug 32.5 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug 35.2 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug 37.1 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Aug 35.2 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Aug 34.6 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Aug 36.1 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Sept 36.7 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept 36.6 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Sept 36.8 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Sept 37.2 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Sept 38.5 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Sept 36.8 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Sept 37.3 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Sept 37.4 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Sept 36.7 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Sept 36.7 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Sept 36.7 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Sept 37.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Sept 37.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Sept 38.5 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Sept 38.0 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Sept 36.9 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Sept 38.3 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Sept 39.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Sept 36.8 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 46
20 Sept 37.0 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Sept 38.4 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Sept 39.3 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Sept 39.4 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Sept 38.1 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Sept after 35.9 °C 33 % 44 km/h 6.8 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2024
After · 1 Oct 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 23 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 127 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 77: 5.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak127 µg/m³
Days over the guideline29 days
PM10185 µg/m³
Optical depth2.91
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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 · 1,517Every 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 Paranatinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 August 2024 and 24 September 2024: 43 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 32,821 hectares (328.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Paranatinga (32,387 ha, 1.3 %); Nova Ubiratã (664 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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
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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.

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.