How long did the Pium fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2024 and 14 September 2024: 10 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 16,048 hectares (160.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pium (15,904 ha, 1.6 %); Lagoa da Confusão (273 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 45 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 · 2024-09-05 → 2024-09-14

Pium fire, 5 September 2024 Pium, Lagoa da Confusão

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2024, 16:24 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2024 in Pium, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,048 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 90th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1243 with a page). Number 186 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pium · 2017 Pium · 2019 Pium · 2019 Pium · 2016

Burnt area: 16,048ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 5 Sept 2024 – 14 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 5 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 646; in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start: 53; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 675MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept14 Sept

Play back 15 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

5 Sept 7 Sept 9 Sept 11 Sept 13 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

45km/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

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,738 ha in 2016, 5,042 ha in 2017, 2,517 ha in 2018, 5,081 ha in 2019, 2,360 ha in 2020, 3,210 ha in 2021, 2,593 ha in 2022, 400 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,960 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 10% of the area of London (160 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

Pium 7,128 inhabitants where it started

15,904 ha

1.6 %
Lagoa da Confusão 15,288 inhabitants

273 ha

0.0 %

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	Rain	Danger (FWI)
5 Sept	39.4 °C	12 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
6 Sept	39.0 °C	11 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
7 Sept	38.7 °C	15 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
8 Sept	38.6 °C	18 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
9 Sept	37.9 °C	19 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
10 Sept	38.2 °C	17 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
11 Sept	38.4 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
12 Sept	38.8 °C	18 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
13 Sept	39.1 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
14 Sept	38.4 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
15 Sept after	39.4 °C	14 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
16 Sept after	39.5 °C	16 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Sept after	40.8 °C	14 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
18 Sept after	38.3 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 52
19 Sept after	39.0 °C	17 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
20 Sept after	39.8 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
21 Sept after	40.0 °C	13 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
22 Sept after	39.9 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
23 Sept after	40.6 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
24 Sept after	38.0 °C	28 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Aug 2024

After · 21 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 7 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 123 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak123 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM10176 µg/m³

Optical depth0.85

WHO 15

34567891011121314151617

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 · 0Every 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 Pium fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2024 and 14 September 2024: 10 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 16,048 hectares (160.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pium (15,904 ha, 1.6 %); Lagoa da Confusão (273 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 45 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 · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

27 October 2026 Last day with fire: 17 September 2024 → 14 September 2024.
27 October 2026 Start date: 30 August 2024 → 5 September 2024.
25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 14 September 2024 → 17 September 2024.
25 October 2026 Start date: 5 September 2024 → 30 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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