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Corumbá fire, 3 September 2017 Corumbá

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2017, 17:01 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2017 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,506 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 427th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 785 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
3,506ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
3 Sept 2017 – 26 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Sept
2017
Heat detections
163
in a single hotspot: 99 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept26 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

345789101314151718192023242526

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
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 27 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
    3,492 ha reached on 3 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)
3 Sept 37.8 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept 37.1 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Sept 34.1 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Sept 33.9 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Sept 36.7 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Sept 37.9 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Sept 37.8 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Sept 38.1 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept 34.1 °C 47 % 29 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
12 Sept 36.3 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Sept 37.8 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Sept 38.7 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Sept 38.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept 28.3 °C 50 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Sept 29.5 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Sept 36.1 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Sept 38.6 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Sept 38.4 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Sept 38.1 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Sept 36.3 °C 32 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Sept 36.3 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Sept 36.7 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.7 mm High 31
25 Sept 39.2 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
26 Sept 36.0 °C 34 % 21 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
27 Sept after 35.8 °C 37 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Aug 2017
After · 3 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 · 163Every 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 3 September 2017 and 26 September 2017: 24 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 3,506 hectares (35.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (3,492 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.