How long did the Conceição do Tocantins fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 August 2017 to 7 September 2017 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 August 2017 to 1 September 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,425 hectares (64.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Conceição do Tocantins (6,370 ha, 2.5 %); Taipas do Tocantins (93 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2017-08-21 → 2017-09-07

Conceição do Tocantins fire, 21 August 2017 Conceição do Tocantins, Taipas do Tocantins

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2017, 16:18 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2017 in Conceição do Tocantins, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,425 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 409th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1243 with a page). Number 319 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Conceição do Tocantins · 2026 Conceição do Tocantins · 2021 Almas · 2026 Arraias · 2026

Burnt area: 6,425ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 21 Aug 2017 – 7 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 21 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 214; in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 102MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug7 Sept

Play back 7 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

21 Aug 24 Aug 27 Aug 30 Aug 2 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

48km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.1% of the area of London (64 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

Conceição do Tocantins 3,887 inhabitants where it started

6,370 ha reached on 21 Aug

2.5 %
Taipas do Tocantins 2,021 inhabitants

93 ha reached on 21 Aug

0.1 %

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 area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Danger (FWI)
21 Aug	35.6 °C	24 %	26 km/h	Very high 42
22 Aug	34.3 °C	25 %	48 km/h	Extreme 53
23 Aug	33.7 °C	28 %	47 km/h	Extreme 52
24 Aug	32.7 °C	30 %	45 km/h	Very high 47
25 Aug	33.4 °C	31 %	44 km/h	Very high 46
26 Aug	34.3 °C	29 %	35 km/h	Very high 42
27 Aug	35.3 °C	24 %	33 km/h	Very high 41
28 Aug	36.2 °C	22 %	35 km/h	Very high 43
29 Aug	35.8 °C	23 %	34 km/h	Very high 42
30 Aug	36.5 °C	19 %	27 km/h	Very high 42
31 Aug	36.9 °C	18 %	27 km/h	Very high 43
1 Sept	36.0 °C	17 %	42 km/h	Extreme 52
2 Sept	34.3 °C	19 %	47 km/h	Extreme 56
3 Sept	33.1 °C	28 %	46 km/h	Extreme 51
4 Sept	32.6 °C	24 %	46 km/h	Extreme 51
5 Sept	34.4 °C	25 %	39 km/h	Very high 48
6 Sept	35.7 °C	26 %	39 km/h	Very high 47
7 Sept	36.5 °C	26 %	36 km/h	Very high 44
8 Sept after	36.1 °C	25 %	35 km/h	Very high 44
9 Sept after	36.3 °C	20 %	44 km/h	Very high 49
10 Sept after	35.5 °C	24 %	42 km/h	Very high 49
11 Sept after	36.1 °C	24 %	41 km/h	Very high 49
12 Sept after	35.2 °C	22 %	44 km/h	Extreme 50
13 Sept after	34.5 °C	22 %	46 km/h	Extreme 53
14 Sept after	35.6 °C	20 %	46 km/h	Extreme 52
15 Sept after	35.0 °C	25 %	44 km/h	Extreme 52
16 Sept after	34.5 °C	19 %	42 km/h	Extreme 50
17 Sept after	34.9 °C	25 %	44 km/h	Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Aug 2017

After · 14 Sept 2017

Before After

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 · 214Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Conceição do Tocantins fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 August 2017 to 7 September 2017 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 August 2017 to 1 September 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,425 hectares (64.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Conceição do Tocantins (6,370 ha, 2.5 %); Taipas do Tocantins (93 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 1 September 2017 → 7 September 2017.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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What really happened?

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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 August 2017 to 1 September 2017. 214 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.

Where it burned