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Amarante do Maranhão fire, 20 October 2017 Amarante do Maranhão

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2017, 04:45 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2017 in Amarante do Maranhão, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,198 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 529th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 896 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
3,198ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
20 Oct 2017 – 26 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Oct
2017
Heat detections
139
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
635MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct26 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

20222324252627

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
52km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.6 mm on 31 Oct.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Amarante do Maranhão 37,085 inhabitants where it started
    3,218 ha reached on 18 Oct
    0.4 %

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)
14 Oct 35.1 °C 45 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
15 Oct 33.7 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm High 24
16 Oct 33.3 °C 56 % 36 km/h 2.3 mm Low 11
17 Oct 34.8 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 21
18 Oct 34.9 °C 46 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Oct 35.8 °C 42 % 51 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
20 Oct 37.2 °C 37 % 48 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
21 Oct 35.7 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Oct 36.8 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Oct 36.3 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Oct 36.4 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Oct 35.8 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Oct 36.5 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
27 Oct after 33.6 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
28 Oct after 34.3 °C 43 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
29 Oct after 35.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Oct after 31.5 °C 57 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
31 Oct after 25.5 °C 76 % 26 km/h 16.6 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Oct 2017
After · 2 Nov 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 · 139Every 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 Amarante do Maranhão fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2017 and 26 October 2017: 7 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 3,198 hectares (32.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Amarante do Maranhão (3,218 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.