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Corumbá fire, 18 September 2017 Corumbá

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2017, 17:20 UTC

The fire started on 18 September 2017 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,349 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 450th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 838 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
3,349ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
18 Sept 2017 – 27 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Sept
2017
Heat detections
155
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
841MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Sept27 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

18192021232425

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
49km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 22.5 mm on 29 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    3,339 ha reached on 13 Sept
    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)
13 Sept 38.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept 38.8 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept 38.9 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Sept 28.8 °C 47 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Sept 30.0 °C 44 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Sept 36.4 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Sept 38.6 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Sept 38.8 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Sept 38.2 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Sept 36.0 °C 30 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Sept 36.2 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Sept 36.8 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Sept 39.4 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
26 Sept 36.6 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept 35.8 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
28 Sept after 30.7 °C 55 % 19 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 17
29 Sept after 27.2 °C 73 % 26 km/h 22.5 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Sept 2017
After · 4 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 · 155Every 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 Corumbá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 September 2017 and 27 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 3,349 hectares (33.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (3,339 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.