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Rorainópolis fire, March 2024 Rorainópolis

Out · last detection 15 Mar 2024, 17:19 UTC

The fire started on 4 March 2024 in Rorainópolis, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,747 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 57th largest in Roraima since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 729 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
4,747ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
4 Mar 2024 – 14 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Mar
2024
Heat detections
122
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Mar 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Mar14 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

4567912131415

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
37km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 16 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Rorainópolis 20,957 inhabitants where it started
    4,780 ha reached on 4 Mar
    0.1 %

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)
4 Mar 36.0 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
5 Mar 36.3 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
6 Mar 36.8 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
7 Mar 35.6 °C 46 % 34 km/h 11.6 mm Very low 3
8 Mar 32.5 °C 59 % 37 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 2
9 Mar 34.2 °C 51 % 34 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 2
10 Mar 36.2 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm Low 8
11 Mar 35.5 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
12 Mar 36.4 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 11
13 Mar 34.7 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
14 Mar 36.2 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Mar after 35.9 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 13
16 Mar after 30.3 °C 64 % 34 km/h 5.8 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Feb 2024
After · 21 Mar 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 6 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10154 µg/m³
Optical depth1.09
234567891011121314151617
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 · 122Every 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 Rorainópolis fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 March 2024 and 14 March 2024: 11 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 4,747 hectares (47.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rorainópolis (4,780 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, 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.