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Barra fire, October 2017 Barra

Out · last detection 31 Oct 2017, 16:05 UTC

The fire started on 5 October 2017 in Barra, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,685 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 65th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 128 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
12,685ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
5 Oct 2017 – 31 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Oct
2017
Heat detections
747
in a single hotspot: 536 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
20.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Oct31 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
43km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.3 mm on 1 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Barra 51,092 inhabitants where it started
    12,783 ha reached on 5 Oct
    1.1 %

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)
5 Oct 36.1 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Oct 35.8 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Oct 35.3 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Oct 36.2 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Oct 36.2 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Oct 35.5 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Oct 36.1 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Oct 36.6 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Oct 36.3 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Oct 37.5 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Oct 39.8 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Oct 38.1 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Oct 34.3 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Oct 33.6 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Oct 35.8 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Oct 37.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Oct 38.2 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Oct 37.9 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Oct 38.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Oct 38.3 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Oct 38.2 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Oct 38.2 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Oct 38.3 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Oct 37.0 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Oct 39.0 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Oct 37.0 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Oct 35.0 °C 31 % 38 km/h 4.6 mm Moderate 17
1 Nov after 34.4 °C 39 % 22 km/h 5.3 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Sept 2017
After · 7 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 · 747Every 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 Barra fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2017 and 31 October 2017: 27 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 12,685 hectares (126.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barra (12,783 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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

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
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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.