Poconé fire, November 2024 Poconé, Cáceres
The fire started on 9 November 2024 in Poconé, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,851 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 340th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 234 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
- Burnt area
- 12,851ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 9 Nov 2024 – 20 Nov 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Nov
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 841
- in a single hotspot: 367 MW
- Danger at start
- 0
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 14.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.6 mm on 22 Nov.
This area had burned before
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,116 ha in 2020, 3,952 ha in 2022, 2,650 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,607 ha that had burned before.
- 11,116 ha Corumbá fire, June 2020 312,925 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,650 ha Barão de Melgaço fire, October 2023 464,290 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,890 ha Poconé fire, December 2022 7,298 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,528 ha Poconé fire, November 2022 3,271 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
12,215 ha reached on 8 Nov0.7 %
-
Cáceres 89,681 inhabitants762 ha reached on 15 Nov0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Nov | 31.1 °C | 64 % | 22 km/h | 5.5 mm | Very low 0 |
| 9 Nov | 33.8 °C | 39 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 10 Nov | 35.9 °C | 34 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 11 Nov | 34.9 °C | 52 % | 26 km/h | 0.7 mm | Very low 5 |
| 12 Nov | 28.7 °C | 64 % | 43 km/h | 6.8 mm | Very low 1 |
| 13 Nov | 27.3 °C | 59 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 14 Nov | 32.9 °C | 45 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 15 Nov | 35.6 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 16 Nov | 34.4 °C | 47 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 17 Nov | 33.5 °C | 54 % | 26 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 6 |
| 18 Nov | 31.9 °C | 65 % | 22 km/h | 5.4 mm | Very low 1 |
| 19 Nov | 30.9 °C | 68 % | 26 km/h | 42.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 20 Nov | 29.9 °C | 69 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 0 |
| 21 Nov after | 33.1 °C | 57 % | 20 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very low 2 |
| 22 Nov after | 31.2 °C | 65 % | 20 km/h | 5.6 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 11 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 364 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 186: 12 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 841Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 16,341 haCáceres15 January 2024 · 34 days · 16 km away
- 25,289 haPoconé10 January 2020 · 19 days · 28 km away
- 312,925 haCorumbá29 June 2020 · 136 days · 37 km away
- 18,244 haPoconéMarch 2020 · 19 days · 39 km away
- 78,512 haPoconé23 August 2020 · 52 days · 40 km away
- 43,365 haCorumbá11 October 2024 · 16 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Poconé fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 November 2024 and 20 November 2024: 12 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 12,851 hectares (128.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Poconé (12,215 ha, 0.7 %); Cáceres (762 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, class Low.
- 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
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.