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Paranatinga fire, 24 August 2024 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2024, 05:31 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2024 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,832 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1129th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 715 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
4,832ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
24 Aug 2024 – 30 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Aug
2024
Heat detections
128
in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug30 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

24252627282930

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
46km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    4,880 ha reached on 24 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
24 Aug 34.5 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Aug 28.9 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Aug 30.3 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug 33.6 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Aug 34.7 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Aug 33.9 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Aug 33.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Aug after 34.8 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Sept after 35.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept after 35.3 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Sept after 35.2 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Sept after 35.8 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Sept after 35.7 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Sept after 35.0 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Sept after 35.9 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Sept after 35.5 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
9 Sept after 35.2 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2024
After · 6 Sept 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 25 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1056 µg/m³
Optical depth0.64
2223242526272829303112
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 · 128Every 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 24 August 2024 and 30 August 2024: 7 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 4,832 hectares (48.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (4,880 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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
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.