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Castilho fire, September 2017 Castilho, Paulicéia, Três Lagoas

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2017, 16:22 UTC

The fire started on 26 September 2017 in Castilho, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,662 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 30th largest in São Paulo since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 386 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
5,662ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
26 Sept 2017 – 28 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
26 Sept
2017
Heat detections
200
in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Sept28 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

262728

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
35km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.5 mm on 29 Sept.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Castilho 19,977 inhabitants where it started
    5,660 ha reached on 26 Sept
    5.3 %
  2. Paulicéia 7,955 inhabitants
    30 ha
    0.1 %
  3. Três Lagoas 132,152 inhabitants
    6 ha
    0.0 %

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)
26 Sept 33.0 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Sept 36.3 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Sept 36.8 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Sept after 24.7 °C 61 % 34 km/h 6.5 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Sept 2017
After · 5 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 · 200Every 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 Castilho fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 September 2017 and 28 September 2017: 3 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 5,662 hectares (56.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Castilho (5,660 ha, 5.3 %); Paulicéia (30 ha, 0.1 %); Três Lagoas (6 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 35 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

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.