How long did the Ucayali fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2024 to 24 September 2024 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2024 to 20 September 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,800 hectares (18.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ucayali (1,809 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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.

PE · Peru · 2024-08-28 → 2024-09-24

Ucayali fire, 28 August 2024 Ucayali

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2024, 18:38 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2024 in Ucayali, Peru, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,800 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Loreto since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 22 in Peru in 2024, of 71.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ucayali · 2021 Ucayali · 2021

Burnt area: 1,800ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 28days; 28 Aug 2024 – 24 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; provinces
Started on: 28 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 140; in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 50MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug24 Sept

Play back 24 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

28 Aug 3 Sept 7 Sept 11 Sept 12 Sept 17 Sept 23 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

39°high

36km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.7 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,286 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,127 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.1% of the area of London (18 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

Ucayali 7,742 inhabitants where it started

1,809 ha reached on 28 Aug

0.1 %

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 2025

Built-up area0.46 ha

Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.46 hectares of built-up land and about 250 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)
28 Aug	34.8 °C	40 %	20 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 18
29 Aug	36.8 °C	37 %	18 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 21
30 Aug	37.0 °C	36 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
31 Aug	37.2 °C	32 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
1 Sept	32.7 °C	51 %	30 km/h	2.1 mm	Low 9
2 Sept	32.5 °C	49 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 17
3 Sept	36.1 °C	37 %	15 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
4 Sept	36.0 °C	39 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
5 Sept	37.1 °C	40 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
6 Sept	32.6 °C	53 %	36 km/h	14.3 mm	Very low 2
7 Sept	34.2 °C	47 %	18 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 9
8 Sept	35.0 °C	43 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 17
9 Sept	36.1 °C	43 %	18 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 15
10 Sept	36.0 °C	43 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
11 Sept	38.0 °C	32 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
12 Sept	37.6 °C	37 %	19 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
13 Sept	37.7 °C	36 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
14 Sept	38.8 °C	34 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
15 Sept	37.5 °C	37 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
16 Sept	33.4 °C	52 %	32 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 14
17 Sept	36.1 °C	43 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 20
18 Sept	37.1 °C	37 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	High 23
19 Sept	37.8 °C	37 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
20 Sept	38.3 °C	34 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
21 Sept	36.0 °C	42 %	22 km/h	2.7 mm	Low 10
22 Sept	35.7 °C	38 %	26 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 14
23 Sept	38.3 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
24 Sept	38.3 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
25 Sept after	39.2 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
26 Sept after	38.8 °C	36 %	39 km/h	0.7 mm	High 29
27 Sept after	28.5 °C	70 %	24 km/h	18.7 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Aug 2024

After · 1 Oct 2024

Before After

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 8 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 101 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 69: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak101 µg/m³

Days over the guideline29 days

PM10144 µg/m³

Optical depth3.64

WHO 15

262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627

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 · 140Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Peru ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ucayali fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2024 to 24 September 2024 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2024 to 20 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,800 hectares (18.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ucayali (1,809 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

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 20 September 2024. 140 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.

Where it burned