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Carolina fire, 17 September 2017 Carolina

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2017, 16:57 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2017 in Carolina, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,502 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 195th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 407 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Carolina · 2025Riachão · 2020Carolina · 2024Riachão · 2020

Burnt area
5,502ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
17 Sept 2017 – 21 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Sept
2017
Heat detections
159
in a single hotspot: 151 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
381MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

21 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept21 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

17 Sept 2017 · 635 MW · 57 18 Sept 2017 · 103 MW · 10 19 Sept 2017 · 852 MW · 42 20 Sept 2017 · 261 MW · 38 21 Sept 2017 · 55 MW · 12
17 Sept 18 Sept 19 Sept 20 Sept 21 Sept

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
48km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2016.

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. Carolina 24,062 inhabitants where it started
    5,541 ha reached on 17 Sept
    0.8 %

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)
17 Sept 38.0 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Sept 39.2 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Sept 39.4 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Sept 39.3 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Sept 38.4 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
22 Sept after 38.6 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Sept after 38.1 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Sept after 38.4 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Sept after 38.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Sept after 39.5 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Sept after 39.4 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Sept after 39.8 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Sept after 40.1 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Sept after 38.9 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Oct after 38.8 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2017
After · 28 Sept 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 · 159Every 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 Carolina fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2017 and 21 September 2017: 5 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 5,502 hectares (55.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Carolina (5,541 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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
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. 159 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.