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Cocalinho fire, October 2017 Cocalinho

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2017, 17:27 UTC

The fire started on 16 October 2017 in Cocalinho, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,435 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1253th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 559 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
4,435ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
16 Oct 2017 – 16 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Oct
2017
Heat detections
107
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.1GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

16 Oct 2017 · 1,090 MW · 107

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
42km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.7 mm on 27 Oct.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 260 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Cocalinho 6,220 inhabitants where it started
    4,455 ha reached on 16 Oct
    0.3 %

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)
15 Oct 40.6 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Oct 39.6 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Oct after 38.8 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Oct after 39.2 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Oct after 40.3 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Oct after 36.7 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Oct after 39.8 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Oct after 38.3 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 45
23 Oct after 37.7 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
24 Oct after 39.2 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
25 Oct after 40.1 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Oct after 38.6 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Oct after 35.4 °C 36 % 27 km/h 9.7 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Oct 2017
After · 23 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 · 107Every 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 Cocalinho fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 October 2017 and 16 October 2017: 1 day 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 4,435 hectares (44.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cocalinho (4,455 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 42 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.