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Vilhena fire, 5 September 2024 Vilhena

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2024, 04:46 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2024 in Vilhena, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,734 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 95th largest in Rondônia since 2016 (of 300 with a page). Number 586 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.

Burnt area
5,734ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
5 Sept 2024 – 28 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2024
Heat detections
266
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept28 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

56791011121415161718192021222324252728

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
42km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 29 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Vilhena 95,832 inhabitants where it started
    5,758 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.5 %

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 Sept 35.8 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept 34.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Sept 36.4 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Sept 35.9 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept 35.3 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Sept 35.5 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Sept 36.5 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Sept 34.6 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Sept 34.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Sept 34.8 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept 35.1 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Sept 34.1 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Sept 31.9 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 21
16 Sept 31.9 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
17 Sept 35.1 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Sept 34.2 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Sept 33.7 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Sept 35.7 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Sept 35.9 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Sept 35.9 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Sept 35.7 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Sept 34.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 21
25 Sept 35.1 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
26 Sept 33.7 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
27 Sept 31.5 °C 43 % 42 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 16
28 Sept 34.2 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.7 mm High 23
29 Sept after 33.3 °C 42 % 31 km/h 3.3 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2024
After · 5 Oct 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 8 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 249 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 198: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak249 µg/m³
Days over the guideline29 days
PM10356 µg/m³
Optical depth4.94
34567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829301
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 · 266Every 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 Vilhena fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2024 and 28 September 2024: 24 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 5,734 hectares (57.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vilhena (5,758 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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

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 193.

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.