How long did the Uruará fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 November 2024 and 4 December 2024: 14 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 3,592 hectares (35.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Uruará (1,993 ha, 0.2 %); Santarém (1,623 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2024-11-21 → 2024-12-04

Uruará fire, 21 November 2024 Uruará, Santarém

Out · last detection 4 Dec 2024, 05:28 UTC

The fire started on 21 November 2024 in Uruará, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,592 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 832th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1096 with a page). Number 1041 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Santarém · 2026 Uruará · 2026 Santarém · 2023 Prainha · 2024

Burnt area: 3,592ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 21 Nov 2024 – 4 Dec 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 21 Nov; 2024
Heat detections: 190; in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start: 12; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 79MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Nov4 Dec

Play back 4 Dec 2024

How it evolved, day by day

21 Nov 25 Nov 27 Nov 28 Nov 29 Nov 1 Dec 3 Dec

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

40km/h · peak gust

37%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.4 mm on 5 Dec.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 158 ha in 2016, 720 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 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

Uruará 43,558 inhabitants where it started

1,993 ha reached on 21 Nov

0.2 %
Santarém 331,942 inhabitants

1,623 ha reached on 21 Nov

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)
21 Nov	34.9 °C	44 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 12
22 Nov	34.5 °C	48 %	28 km/h	0.8 mm	Low 10
23 Nov	35.6 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
24 Nov	35.1 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
25 Nov	34.5 °C	48 %	27 km/h	3.5 mm	Very low 4
26 Nov	33.7 °C	50 %	39 km/h	10.8 mm	Very low 1
27 Nov	33.9 °C	46 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
28 Nov	34.2 °C	44 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
29 Nov	34.1 °C	45 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
30 Nov	35.4 °C	39 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
1 Dec	34.9 °C	45 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 13
2 Dec	35.0 °C	44 %	40 km/h	2.7 mm	Low 5
3 Dec	34.0 °C	47 %	39 km/h	5.1 mm	Very low 2
4 Dec	32.6 °C	53 %	37 km/h	1.4 mm	Very low 4
5 Dec after	30.6 °C	63 %	37 km/h	7.4 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Nov 2024

After · 11 Dec 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 1 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 158 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 97: 6.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak158 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM10163 µg/m³

Optical depth1.32

WHO 15

1920212223242526272829301234567

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 · 190Every 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 Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Uruará fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 November 2024 and 4 December 2024: 14 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 3,592 hectares (35.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Uruará (1,993 ha, 0.2 %); Santarém (1,623 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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 193.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 190 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.

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