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Barra do Garças fire, 6 October 2017 Barra do Garças

Out · last detection 13 Oct 2017, 16:42 UTC

The fire started on 6 October 2017 in Barra do Garças, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,669 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 773th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 304 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
6,669ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
6 Oct 2017 – 13 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Oct
2017
Heat detections
237
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Oct13 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213

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
38km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.8 mm on 22 Oct.

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 do Garças 69,210 inhabitants where it started
    6,710 ha reached on 6 Oct
    0.7 %

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)
6 Oct 34.6 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Oct 34.8 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Oct 36.0 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Oct 35.2 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Oct 35.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Oct 36.5 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Oct 37.0 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Oct 38.1 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Oct after 35.0 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Oct after 35.9 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Oct after 38.1 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Oct after 35.2 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Oct after 34.8 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Oct after 34.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Oct after 35.0 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Oct after 34.5 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Oct after 31.0 °C 43 % 42 km/h 12.8 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Sept 2017
After · 20 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 · 237Every 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 Garças fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 October 2017 and 13 October 2017: 8 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 6,669 hectares (66.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barra do Garças (6,710 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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

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.