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Cláudia fire, October 2017 Cláudia

Out · last detection 19 Oct 2017, 16:31 UTC

The fire started on 17 October 2017 in Cláudia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,038 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1969th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 976 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
3,038ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
17 Oct 2017 – 19 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Oct
2017
Heat detections
161
in a single hotspot: 1,437 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
2.8GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

19 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Oct19 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

17 Oct 2017 · 2,575 MW · 55 18 Oct 2017 · 5,738 MW · 91 19 Oct 2017 · 52 MW · 15
17 Oct 18 Oct 19 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

39°high
34km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.6 mm on 23 Oct.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Cláudia 9,593 inhabitants where it started
    3,056 ha reached on 17 Oct
    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)
10 Oct 36.8 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 16
11 Oct 36.7 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
12 Oct 35.3 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 19
13 Oct 36.4 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
14 Oct 36.0 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Oct 38.0 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
16 Oct 38.9 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Oct 32.2 °C 51 % 30 km/h 15.9 mm Very low 2
18 Oct 34.0 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
19 Oct 35.8 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
20 Oct after 35.3 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
21 Oct after 35.8 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 16
22 Oct after 34.6 °C 45 % 27 km/h 3.0 mm Very low 5
23 Oct after 28.5 °C 68 % 30 km/h 9.6 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Oct 2017
After · 26 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 · 161Every 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 Cláudia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 October 2017 and 19 October 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 3,038 hectares (30.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cláudia (3,056 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class 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.

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. 161 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.