How long did the Vilhena fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2024 to 11 September 2024 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 August 2024 to 8 September 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,827 hectares (38.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Vilhena (3,838 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.

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 · 2024-08-19 → 2024-09-11

Vilhena fire, 19 August 2024 Vilhena

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2024, 05:05 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2024 in Vilhena, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,827 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 183th largest in Rondônia since 2016 (of 300 with a page). Number 964 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Espigão d'Oeste · 2024 Pimenta Bueno · 2024 Espigão d'Oeste · 2024

Burnt area: 3,827ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 24days; 19 Aug 2024 – 11 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 19 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 190; in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 44MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug11 Sept

Play back 11 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

19 Aug 24 Aug 28 Aug 31 Aug 3 Sept 6 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

37°high

42km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.4% of the area of London (38 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

Vilhena 95,832 inhabitants where it started

3,838 ha reached on 19 Aug

0.3 %

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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
19 Aug	34.4 °C	31 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
20 Aug	35.8 °C	22 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
21 Aug	35.6 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
22 Aug	34.9 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
23 Aug	36.5 °C	23 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
24 Aug	34.6 °C	29 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
25 Aug	29.3 °C	35 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
26 Aug	29.6 °C	29 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
27 Aug	33.2 °C	25 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
28 Aug	35.7 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
29 Aug	35.4 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
30 Aug	35.4 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
31 Aug	35.4 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Sept	35.9 °C	24 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
2 Sept	36.3 °C	18 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
3 Sept	35.5 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
4 Sept	34.8 °C	31 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
5 Sept	36.7 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
6 Sept	35.9 °C	18 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
7 Sept	35.1 °C	21 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Sept	35.5 °C	24 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Sept	36.2 °C	20 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Sept	34.6 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
11 Sept	34.2 °C	36 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
12 Sept after	35.1 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
13 Sept after	35.1 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
14 Sept after	34.5 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
15 Sept after	32.3 °C	44 %	28 km/h	0.5 mm	High 28
16 Sept after	32.3 °C	41 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
17 Sept after	35.3 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Sept after	34.6 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Sept after	33.8 °C	39 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Sept after	35.9 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
21 Sept after	36.0 °C	31 %	19 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Aug 2024

After · 18 Sept 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 215 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 184: 12 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak215 µg/m³

Days over the guideline21 days

PM10309 µg/m³

Optical depth4.53

WHO 15

222324252627282930311234567891011

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 Vilhena fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2024 to 11 September 2024 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 August 2024 to 8 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,827 hectares (38.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Vilhena (3,838 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 8 September 2024 → 11 September 2024.
25 October 2026 Start date: 24 August 2024 → 19 August 2024.

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 193.

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 24 August 2024 to 8 September 2024. 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.
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