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Poconé fire, October 2024 Poconé

Out · last detection 26 Oct 2024, 04:22 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2024 in Poconé, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,621 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1607th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 1022 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
3,621ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
20 Oct 2024 – 26 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Oct
2024
Heat detections
294
in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Oct 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct26 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

20212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
54km/h · peak gust
42%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 25.9 mm on 1 Nov.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,500 ha in 2020, 85 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Poconé 31,217 inhabitants where it started
    3,658 ha reached on 20 Oct
    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)
20 Oct 31.4 °C 54 % 17 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 2
21 Oct 34.0 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm Low 8
22 Oct 32.5 °C 57 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
23 Oct 36.1 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13
24 Oct 36.8 °C 42 % 54 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 16
25 Oct 36.8 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
26 Oct 31.1 °C 68 % 27 km/h 10.4 mm Very low 0
27 Oct after 29.0 °C 72 % 22 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 0
28 Oct after 33.4 °C 56 % 13 km/h 0.6 mm Very low 1
29 Oct after 31.3 °C 65 % 16 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 1
30 Oct after 35.7 °C 44 % 15 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 5
31 Oct after 34.8 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm Low 8
1 Nov after 31.0 °C 64 % 30 km/h 25.9 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Oct 2024
After · 2 Nov 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 27 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 374 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 180: 12 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak374 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10535 µg/m³
Optical depth4.64
181920212223242526272829
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 · 294Every 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 Poconé fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2024 and 26 October 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 3,621 hectares (36.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poconé (3,658 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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.