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Barra do Corda fire, 14 September 2017 Barra do Corda, Jenipapo dos Vieiras

Out · last detection 4 Oct 2017, 16:13 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2017 in Barra do Corda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,524 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 194th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 608 with a page). Number 404 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Jenipapo dos Vieiras · 2017Jenipapo dos Vieiras · 2016Jenipapo dos Vieiras · 2017Jenipapo dos Vieiras · 2019

Burnt area
5,524ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
14 Sept 2017 – 5 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
14 Sept
2017
Heat detections
223
in a single hotspot: 171 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
130MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept5 Oct
4 Oct 2017

How it evolved, day by day

14 Sept 2017 · 74 MW · 6 15 Sept 2017 · 107 MW · 15 16 Sept 2017 · 470 MW · 18 17 Sept 2017 · 217 MW · 40 18 Sept 2017 · 32 MW · 5 19 Sept 2017 · 82 MW · 7 20 Sept 2017 · 2 MW · 1 21 Sept 2017 · 98 MW · 5 22 Sept 2017 · 140 MW · 10 23 Sept 2017 · 37 MW · 5 25 Sept 2017 · 69 MW · 5 26 Sept 2017 · 322 MW · 45 27 Sept 2017 · 207 MW · 28 28 Sept 2017 · 182 MW · 13 30 Sept 2017 · 7 MW · 1 1 Oct 2017 · 12 MW · 4 2 Oct 2017 · 13 MW · 3 3 Oct 2017 · 17 MW · 7 4 Oct 2017 · 384 MW · 5
14 Sept 16 Sept 17 Sept 20 Sept 23 Sept 27 Sept 1 Oct 4 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
46km/h · peak gust
31%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?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.5% of the area of London (55 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
    5,084 ha reached on 14 Sept
    1.0 %
  2. Jenipapo dos Vieiras 17,076 inhabitants
    476 ha reached on 25 Sept
    0.2 %

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 area2.8 ha
Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.8 hectares of built-up land and about 150 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)
14 Sept 36.4 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Sept 36.4 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Sept 35.7 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept 35.8 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Sept 36.4 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept 37.3 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Sept 36.6 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Sept 37.0 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Sept 36.2 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Sept 36.6 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Sept 36.5 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Sept 35.4 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Sept 37.5 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Sept 37.1 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Sept 37.5 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Sept 37.7 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Sept 36.5 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
1 Oct 36.7 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Oct 36.8 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Oct 37.8 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Oct 37.4 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
5 Oct 37.5 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Oct after 37.9 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Oct after 36.8 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Oct after 36.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Oct after 35.7 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Oct after 34.7 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
11 Oct after 36.0 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
12 Oct after 36.5 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
13 Oct after 36.5 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Oct after 36.3 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
15 Oct after 35.7 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2017
After · 12 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 · 223Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2017 and 5 October 2017: 22 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 5,524 hectares (55.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Barra do Corda (5,084 ha, 1.0 %); Jenipapo dos Vieiras (476 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 223 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.