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Barra do Corda fire, 4 September 2017 Barra do Corda, Grajaú

Out · last detection 14 Oct 2017, 16:26 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2017 in Barra do Corda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 41 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,420 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 25th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 98 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Barra do Corda · 2016Jenipapo dos Vieiras · 2017Jenipapo dos Vieiras · 2018Jenipapo dos Vieiras · 2016

Burnt area
15,420ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
41days
4 Sept 2017 – 14 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2017
Heat detections
885
in a single hotspot: 282 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
389MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept14 Oct
14 Oct 2017

How it evolved, day by day

4 Sept 2017 · 296 MW · 21 5 Sept 2017 · 53 MW · 15 6 Sept 2017 · 638 MW · 52 7 Sept 2017 · 180 MW · 17 8 Sept 2017 · 65 MW · 6 9 Sept 2017 · 260 MW · 25 10 Sept 2017 · 2,705 MW · 104 11 Sept 2017 · 2,320 MW · 107 12 Sept 2017 · 3,512 MW · 120 13 Sept 2017 · 563 MW · 64 14 Sept 2017 · 39 MW · 5 15 Sept 2017 · 39 MW · 12 16 Sept 2017 · 601 MW · 23 17 Sept 2017 · 977 MW · 30 18 Sept 2017 · 55 MW · 6 19 Sept 2017 · 9 MW · 2 20 Sept 2017 · 43 MW · 7 21 Sept 2017 · 356 MW · 18 22 Sept 2017 · 263 MW · 11 23 Sept 2017 · 222 MW · 19 24 Sept 2017 · 32 MW · 3 25 Sept 2017 · 140 MW · 13 26 Sept 2017 · 151 MW · 28 27 Sept 2017 · 208 MW · 13 28 Sept 2017 · 78 MW · 11 29 Sept 2017 · 7 MW · 3 30 Sept 2017 · 12 MW · 2 1 Oct 2017 · 41 MW · 4 2 Oct 2017 · 47 MW · 11 3 Oct 2017 · 818 MW · 30 4 Oct 2017 · 207 MW · 45 5 Oct 2017 · 83 MW · 17 6 Oct 2017 · 19 MW · 9 7 Oct 2017 · 21 MW · 15 8 Oct 2017 · 20 MW · 5 9 Oct 2017 · 37 MW · 5 12 Oct 2017 · 8 MW · 2 13 Oct 2017 · 33 MW · 4 14 Oct 2017 · 6 MW · 1
4 Sept 10 Sept 12 Sept 16 Sept 22 Sept 28 Sept 4 Oct 12 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

39°high
52km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 15 Oct.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 272 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9.7% of the area of London (154 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

  1. Barra do Corda 84,532 inhabitants where it started
    14,770 ha reached on 4 Sept
    2.8 %
  2. Grajaú 73,872 inhabitants
    759 ha reached on 26 Sept
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area4.3 ha
Residents≈ 400

Inside the perimeter there were about 4.3 hectares of built-up land and about 400 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
4 Sept 35.5 °C 33 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Sept 35.4 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept 36.1 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept 35.6 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept 37.2 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 36.5 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Sept 37.1 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Sept 36.7 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 37.1 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept 36.0 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept 37.3 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Sept 36.9 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept 36.2 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Sept 36.4 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept 37.0 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept 38.0 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept 37.3 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Sept 37.8 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Sept 36.8 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Sept 37.3 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Sept 37.3 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Sept 35.9 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Sept 38.4 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Sept 38.0 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Sept 38.1 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Sept 38.6 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Sept 37.1 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Oct 37.4 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Oct 37.8 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Oct 38.7 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Oct 38.3 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Oct 38.2 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Oct 38.4 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Oct 37.3 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Oct 37.5 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Oct 36.3 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Oct 35.2 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
11 Oct 36.9 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Oct 37.1 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
13 Oct 37.2 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Oct 37.2 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Oct after 36.0 °C 45 % 35 km/h 1.0 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2017
After · 21 Oct 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 · 885Every 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 do Corda fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 September 2017 to 14 October 2017 (41 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 September 2017 to 8 October 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,420 hectares (154.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Barra do Corda (14,770 ha, 2.8 %); Grajaú (759 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 8 October 2017 → 14 October 2017.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 September 2017 to 8 October 2017. 885 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.