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BR · Brazil · –

Sapezal fire, September 2024 Tangará da Serra, Sapezal

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2024, 17:01 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2024 in Sapezal, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,726 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 406th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1872 with a page). Number 296 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
10,726ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
7 Sept 2024 – 13 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
7 Sept
2024
Heat detections
343
in a single hotspot: 237 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept13 Sept
13 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

7 Sept 2024 · 3,191 MW · 79 8 Sept 2024 · 3,248 MW · 76 9 Sept 2024 · 1,002 MW · 56 10 Sept 2024 · 505 MW · 25 11 Sept 2024 · 347 MW · 61 12 Sept 2024 · 17 MW · 13 13 Sept 2024 · 196 MW · 33
8 Sept 11 Sept 13 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,380 ha in 2016, 216 ha in 2017, 50 ha in 2018, 233 ha in 2019, 868 ha in 2020, 305 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,242 ha that had burned before.

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. Tangará da Serra 106,434 inhabitants
    7,945 ha reached on 7 Sept
    0.7 %
  2. Sapezal 28,944 inhabitants where it started
    2,894 ha reached on 7 Sept
    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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 Very dry air: 6.4 % of the area in Brazil 60 days without rain: 55 % of the area in Brazil

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
7 Sept 35.9 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Sept 36.0 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Sept 36.5 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Sept 35.9 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Sept 34.7 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Sept 35.2 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Sept 35.1 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept after 34.0 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept after 30.2 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Sept after 29.2 °C 47 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
17 Sept after 34.2 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept after 35.8 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 33.2 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 43
20 Sept after 35.3 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Sept after 36.4 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Sept after 36.0 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Sept after 36.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 56.8, a minimum humidity of 14% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 56.8
Minimum humidity 14 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Tangará da Serra fire, August 2024
4,595 ha 4 days FWI 60.1 Min. humidity 10 % 118 km away, in 2024

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

What happened to them

14 days
median duration
6,093 ha
median area
22 %
went past 10,000 ha
1.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 9 of 18 had it)

It was 1.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 7 days, against 14 days.

Only 4 of its 18 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 9 of 18, 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 1.5 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
45km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 9 of 18, with a median of 1.5 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 · 31 Aug 2024
After · 20 Sept 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 9 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 232 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 144: 9.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak232 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10332 µg/m³
Optical depth4.19
5 Sept8 Sept11 Sept14 Sept
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 · 343Every 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 Sapezal fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 September 2024 and 13 September 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 10,726 hectares (107.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tangará da Serra (7,945 ha, 0.7 %); Sapezal (2,894 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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: 18. Their median duration was 14 days and their median area 6,093 ha; 22 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 4 of its 18 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 9 of 18, 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 1.5 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. 343 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.