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Altamira fire, 2 July 2017 Altamira

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2017, 16:38 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2017 in Altamira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,054 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 513th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1095 with a page). Number 468 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
5,054ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
2 Jul 2017 – 4 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Jul
2017
Heat detections
673
in a single hotspot: 353 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
11.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

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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
46km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,515 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Altamira 126,279 inhabitants where it started
    5,087 ha reached on 2 Jul
    0.0 %

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)
2 Jul 34.1 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Jul 34.8 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Jul 34.3 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Jul 34.5 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Jul 33.5 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Jul 34.6 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Jul 34.5 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Jul 34.2 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Jul 34.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Jul 33.8 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jul 35.1 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Jul 35.4 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Jul 35.2 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jul 34.4 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul 34.4 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jul 35.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul 34.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jul 34.6 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jul 35.3 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Jul 35.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul 36.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jul 34.6 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Jul 35.6 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul 34.8 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jul 34.9 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul 33.9 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul 34.3 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul 34.4 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul 35.0 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jul 34.8 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug 35.7 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug 35.9 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug 37.1 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug 37.1 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Aug after 35.6 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Aug after 35.1 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Aug after 34.6 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug after 35.1 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Aug after 35.8 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Aug after 35.8 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Aug after 35.3 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug after 35.6 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Aug after 35.5 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Aug after 36.5 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Aug after 36.2 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2017
After · 11 Aug 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 · 673Every 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 Altamira fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 July 2017 and 4 August 2017: 34 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 5,054 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Altamira (5,087 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.