How long did the Arraias fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 October 2017 and 17 October 2017: 15 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 8,060 hectares (80.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Arraias (8,102 ha, 1.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.

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 · 2017-10-03 → 2017-10-17

Arraias fire, 3 October 2017 Arraias

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2017, 04:34 UTC

The fire started on 3 October 2017 in Arraias, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,060 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 293th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 236 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Arraias · 2019 Arraias · 2025 Arraias · 2026 Arraias · 2019

Burnt area: 8,060ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 3 Oct 2017 – 17 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 3 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 382; in a single hotspot: 84 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 183MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 17 Oct 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

3 Oct 6 Oct 7 Oct 8 Oct 10 Oct 12 Oct 14 Oct 16 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

45km/h · peak gust

15%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 5.1% of the area of London (81 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

Arraias 10,287 inhabitants where it started

8,102 ha reached on 3 Oct

1.4 %

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)
3 Oct	31.7 °C	43 %	37 km/h	1.0 mm	High 24
4 Oct	37.0 °C	22 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
5 Oct	36.5 °C	21 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
6 Oct	36.0 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
7 Oct	36.8 °C	15 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
8 Oct	36.2 °C	16 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
9 Oct	35.9 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
10 Oct	37.4 °C	18 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
11 Oct	36.7 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
12 Oct	37.3 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
13 Oct	37.3 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
14 Oct	38.1 °C	19 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
15 Oct	38.0 °C	24 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
16 Oct	36.1 °C	28 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
17 Oct	35.8 °C	16 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
18 Oct after	34.6 °C	22 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
19 Oct after	35.2 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
20 Oct after	35.4 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
21 Oct after	38.8 °C	16 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
22 Oct after	38.9 °C	16 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
23 Oct after	37.6 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
24 Oct after	38.1 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
25 Oct after	38.6 °C	17 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
26 Oct after	37.1 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
27 Oct after	36.0 °C	27 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Sept 2017

After · 24 Oct 2017

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.

Detections table · 382Every 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 Arraias fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 October 2017 and 17 October 2017: 15 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 8,060 hectares (80.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Arraias (8,102 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 382 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.

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