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Tahuamanu fire, 10 August 2024 Tahuamanu

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2024, 18:24 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2024 in Tahuamanu, Peru, and satellites saw it burning for 36 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,349 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Madre de Dios since 2016 (of 67 with a page). The largest in Peru in 2024, of 71.

Burnt area
22,349ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
36days
10 Aug 2024 – 14 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
provinces
Started on
10 Aug
2024
Heat detections
1,417
in a single hotspot: 213 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
15.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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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
53km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 15 Sept.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,338 ha in 2016, 4,476 ha in 2017, 4,500 ha in 2018, 5,543 ha in 2019, 4,563 ha in 2020, 5,479 ha in 2021, 4,930 ha in 2022, 346 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,129 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tahuamanu 4,648 inhabitants where it started
    22,519 ha reached on 10 Aug
    1.1 %

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)
3 Aug 34.1 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Aug 34.1 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Aug 32.7 °C 49 % 36 km/h 8.3 mm Very low 4
6 Aug 32.4 °C 48 % 31 km/h 1.9 mm Low 8
7 Aug 33.5 °C 42 % 38 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 15
8 Aug 32.2 °C 50 % 32 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 4
9 Aug 23.6 °C 66 % 37 km/h 2.0 mm Very low 4
10 Aug 24.8 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
11 Aug 29.5 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Aug 30.6 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Aug 29.9 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
14 Aug 32.7 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Aug 34.9 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Aug 35.3 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Aug 34.8 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Aug 35.0 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Aug 34.9 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
20 Aug 34.9 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
21 Aug 34.7 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Aug 35.2 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
23 Aug 35.9 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
24 Aug 33.1 °C 46 % 28 km/h 3.1 mm Low 10
25 Aug 26.9 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
26 Aug 27.8 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
27 Aug 31.8 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Aug 33.3 °C 34 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Aug 35.0 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Aug 35.6 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug 35.9 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Sept 33.9 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
2 Sept 34.4 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Sept 36.3 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Sept 36.6 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Sept 36.0 °C 36 % 53 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 43
6 Sept 32.8 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Sept 35.0 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Sept 35.4 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Sept 35.2 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Sept 36.3 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Sept 35.9 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Sept 35.4 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Sept 36.0 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
14 Sept 36.3 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm High 34
15 Sept after 29.4 °C 55 % 36 km/h 4.0 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2024
After · 21 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 5 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 250 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 143: 9.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak250 µg/m³
Days over the guideline36 days
PM10357 µg/m³
Optical depth5.44
89101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617
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 · 1,417Every 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 Peru ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tahuamanu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2024 and 14 September 2024: 36 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 22,349 hectares (223.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tahuamanu (22,519 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Peru (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: 116 · 105

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 116 · 105.

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.