Rio Sono fire, 4 September 2024 Rio Sono, Lizarda
The fire started on 4 September 2024 in Rio Sono, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,228 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 40th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1243 with a page). Number 103 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 27,228ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 4 Sept 2024 – 25 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 816
- in a single hotspot: 261 MW
- Danger at start
- 66
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 510MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,107 ha in 2016, 5,423 ha in 2017, 1,922 ha in 2018, 347 ha in 2019, 4,644 ha in 2020, 153 ha in 2022, 286 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,391 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
26,861 ha reached on 4 Sept4.2 %
-
Lizarda 2,999 inhabitants529 ha reached on 7 Sept0.1 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.27 hectares of built-up land and about 30 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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Sept | 39.3 °C | 7 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 5 Sept | 38.5 °C | 9 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 6 Sept | 38.4 °C | 9 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 7 Sept | 38.2 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 8 Sept | 38.0 °C | 15 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 9 Sept | 37.2 °C | 16 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 10 Sept | 37.0 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 11 Sept | 37.9 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 12 Sept | 37.7 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 13 Sept | 38.2 °C | 15 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 14 Sept | 37.5 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 15 Sept | 38.2 °C | 15 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 16 Sept | 38.7 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 17 Sept | 40.1 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 18 Sept | 39.2 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 19 Sept | 38.4 °C | 15 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 20 Sept | 39.1 °C | 13 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 21 Sept | 39.7 °C | 12 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 22 Sept | 39.6 °C | 14 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 23 Sept | 40.0 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 24 Sept | 38.0 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Sept | 34.9 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Sept after | 37.8 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 27 Sept after | 38.8 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 28 Sept after | 38.4 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 29 Sept after | 37.6 °C | 24 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Sept after | 37.4 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 1 Oct after | 38.2 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 2 Oct after | 38.5 °C | 17 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 3 Oct after | 40.3 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 4 Oct after | 38.2 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 5 Oct after | 38.8 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
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 7 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 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 · 816Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,213 haLizarda3 September 2020 · 16 days · 24 km away
- 16,040 haRio Sono12 September 2017 · 11 days · 28 km away
- 11,542 haRio Sono3 September 2024 · 11 days · 28 km away
- 72,342 haRio SonoAugust 2020 · 32 days · 31 km away
- 18,221 haLizarda23 October 2025 · 9 days · 32 km away
- 23,543 haLizarda4 August 2024 · 30 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rio Sono fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 September 2024 to 25 September 2024 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2024 to 21 September 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 27,228 hectares (272.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Rio Sono (26,861 ha, 4.2 %); Lizarda (529 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very 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 ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 21 September 2024 → 25 September 2024.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 September 2024 to 21 September 2024. 816 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.
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.