Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · –

Ribeirão Preto fire, August 2024 Ribeirão Preto, Guatapará, Cravinhos

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2024, 16:34 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2024 in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,749 hectares from heat detections, spread across 7 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in São Paulo since 2016 (of 96 with a page). Number 293 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
10,749ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
23 Aug 2024 – 24 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
7
municipalities
Started on
23 Aug
2024
Heat detections
479
in a single hotspot: 232 MW
Danger at start
68
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
5.7GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug24 Aug
24 Aug 2024

How it evolved, day by day

23 Aug 2024 · 6,513 MW · 287 24 Aug 2024 · 4,874 MW · 192
23 Aug 24 Aug

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
62km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 25 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.8% of the area of London (107 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

  1. Ribeirão Preto 698,642 inhabitants where it started
    5,164 ha reached on 23 Aug
    7.9 %
  2. Guatapará 7,320 inhabitants
    3,163 ha reached on 23 Aug
    7.6 %
  3. Cravinhos 33,281 inhabitants
    2,006 ha reached on 23 Aug
    6.4 %
  4. Pradópolis 17,078 inhabitants
    238 ha reached on 24 Aug
    1.4 %
  5. Luís Antônio 1,226 inhabitants
    182 ha reached on 24 Aug
    0.3 %
  6. Barrinha 32,092 inhabitants
    30 ha reached on 24 Aug
    0.2 %
  7. Dumont 9,471 inhabitants
    22 ha
    0.2 %

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 area2.5 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.5 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 46 % of the area in Brazil

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
23 Aug 35.2 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
24 Aug 33.3 °C 26 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Aug after 19.5 °C 52 % 35 km/h 6.1 mm Moderate 19

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 67.5, a minimum humidity of 15% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 67.5
Minimum humidity 15 %
Days without rain 12
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Sertãozinho fire, September 2021
5,060 ha 8 days FWI 67.3 Min. humidity 16 % 29 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
4,008 ha
median area
13 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 9 of 15 had it)

It was 2.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 4 days.

Only 1 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

6.1 mmfirst rain
25 Augthe day after it ended
62km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 24 Aug, and on 25 Aug 6.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 9 of 15, with a median of 2.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2024
After · 31 Aug 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 24 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 191 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 76: 5.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak191 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10273 µg/m³
Optical depth2.41
21 Aug23 Aug25 Aug27 Aug
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 · 479Every 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 Ribeirão Preto fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2024 and 24 August 2024: 2 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 10,749 hectares (107.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 7 municipalities: Ribeirão Preto (5,164 ha, 7.9 %); Guatapará (3,163 ha, 7.6 %); Cravinhos (2,006 ha, 6.4 %); Pradópolis (238 ha, 1.4 %); Luís Antônio (182 ha, 0.3 %); Barrinha (30 ha, 0.2 %); Dumont (22 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 4,008 ha; 13 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 1 of its 15 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.6 mm.

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

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

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. 479 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.