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Almas fire, 10 September 2017 Almas

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2017, 16:12 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2017 in Almas, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,038 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 135th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 120 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
13,038ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
10 Sept 2017 – 18 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Sept
2017
Heat detections
392
in a single hotspot: 228 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high
46km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 109 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Almas 6,499 inhabitants where it started
    13,107 ha reached on 10 Sept
    3.2 %

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)
10 Sept 33.5 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept 34.0 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Sept 33.2 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 32.7 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept 34.0 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Sept 33.4 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Sept 32.5 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Sept 32.8 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Sept 33.5 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Sept after 34.1 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 34.6 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Sept after 30.3 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Sept after 32.0 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept after 33.5 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Sept after 33.9 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Sept after 34.0 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Sept after 34.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Sept after 35.5 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Sept after 35.5 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2017
After · 25 Sept 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 392Every 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 Almas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2017 and 18 September 2017: 9 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 13,038 hectares (130.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Almas (13,107 ha, 3.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.