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Chapada dos Guimarães fire, September 2017 Chapada dos Guimarães

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2017, 16:42 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2017 in Chapada dos Guimarães, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,585 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1135th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1872 with a page). Number 534 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
4,585ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
2 Sept 2017 – 11 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Sept
2017
Heat detections
167
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
91MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept11 Sept
11 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

2 Sept 2017 · 25 MW · 5 3 Sept 2017 · 271 MW · 37 4 Sept 2017 · 174 MW · 45 5 Sept 2017 · 107 MW · 29 6 Sept 2017 · 106 MW · 20 7 Sept 2017 · 115 MW · 14 8 Sept 2017 · 61 MW · 10 9 Sept 2017 · 17 MW · 3 10 Sept 2017 · 3 MW · 1 11 Sept 2017 · 32 MW · 3
3 Sept 6 Sept 8 Sept 10 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

37°high
45km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 21 Sept.

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 2.9% of the area of London (46 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. Chapada dos Guimarães 18,990 inhabitants where it started
    4,615 ha reached on 2 Sept
    0.7 %

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 area0.41 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.41 hectares of built-up land and about 50 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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 46 % of the area in Brazil

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
2 Sept 36.7 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
3 Sept 35.4 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
4 Sept 34.0 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Sept 34.5 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Sept 34.1 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Sept 35.3 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Sept 36.7 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 37.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Sept 36.3 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Sept 36.2 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Sept after 36.0 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 35.5 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Sept after 35.2 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Sept after 36.2 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Sept after 28.3 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
17 Sept after 29.6 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Sept after 35.2 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 36.5 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Sept after 36.3 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Sept after 34.6 °C 32 % 34 km/h 2.7 mm Very high 44

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 59.0, a minimum humidity of 21% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 22.

FWI at the start 59.0
Minimum humidity 21 %
Days without rain 12
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Chapada dos Guimarães fire, September 2019
15,606 ha 12 days FWI 61.7 Min. humidity 20 % 33 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 24 Sept.

What happened to them

8 days
median duration
5,788 ha
median area
23 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 19 of 22 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (4,585 ha against a median of 5,788 ha) and lasted 10 days, against 8 days.

In 3 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.7 mmfirst rain
21 Sept10 days after it ended
45km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 11 Sept, and on 21 Sept 2.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 19 of 22, with a median of 2.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2017
After · 18 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 · 167Every 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 Chapada dos Guimarães fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 September 2017 and 11 September 2017: 10 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 4,585 hectares (45.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chapada dos Guimarães (4,615 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 22. Their median duration was 8 days and their median area 5,788 ha; 23 % went past 10,000 ha. In 3 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.

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.

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. 167 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.