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Fernando Falcão fire, September 2017 Fernando Falcão, Grajaú

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2017, 16:26 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2017 in Fernando Falcão, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,476 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 51th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 608 with a page). Number 165 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Barra do Corda · 2017Barra do Corda · 2017Jenipapo dos Vieiras · 2017Jenipapo dos Vieiras · 2018

Burnt area
10,476ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
3 Sept 2017 – 28 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
3 Sept
2017
Heat detections
529
in a single hotspot: 179 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
350MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept28 Sept
28 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

3 Sept 2017 · 50 MW · 7 4 Sept 2017 · 411 MW · 12 5 Sept 2017 · 51 MW · 9 6 Sept 2017 · 83 MW · 10 7 Sept 2017 · 33 MW · 5 8 Sept 2017 · 7 MW · 1 9 Sept 2017 · 79 MW · 4 10 Sept 2017 · 311 MW · 32 11 Sept 2017 · 281 MW · 26 12 Sept 2017 · 194 MW · 25 13 Sept 2017 · 163 MW · 19 14 Sept 2017 · 933 MW · 28 15 Sept 2017 · 1,348 MW · 68 16 Sept 2017 · 899 MW · 103 17 Sept 2017 · 3,256 MW · 110 18 Sept 2017 · 251 MW · 26 19 Sept 2017 · 251 MW · 15 20 Sept 2017 · 29 MW · 7 21 Sept 2017 · 63 MW · 13 22 Sept 2017 · 3 MW · 1 23 Sept 2017 · 15 MW · 1 24 Sept 2017 · 17 MW · 3 25 Sept 2017 · 3 MW · 1 26 Sept 2017 · 9 MW · 2 28 Sept 2017 · 21 MW · 1
3 Sept 7 Sept 11 Sept 15 Sept 17 Sept 19 Sept 23 Sept 28 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

38°high
55km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 597 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.6% of the area of London (105 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

  1. Fernando Falcão 10,873 inhabitants where it started
    6,914 ha reached on 3 Sept
    1.4 %
  2. Grajaú 73,872 inhabitants
    3,630 ha reached on 14 Sept
    0.4 %

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 area0.87 ha
Residents≈ 70

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.87 hectares of built-up land and about 70 residents (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 Rain Danger (FWI)
3 Sept 35.1 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept 34.8 °C 34 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Sept 34.8 °C 35 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 35.5 °C 38 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept 35.2 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept 36.6 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 35.9 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Sept 36.4 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Sept 36.1 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 36.3 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept 35.3 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept 36.8 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Sept 36.3 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Sept 35.4 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Sept 35.7 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Sept 36.4 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept 37.5 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept 36.8 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Sept 37.1 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Sept 36.0 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept 36.6 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Sept 36.6 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Sept 35.3 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Sept 37.9 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept 37.3 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Sept 37.6 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Sept after 38.0 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Sept after 36.6 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
1 Oct after 36.8 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Oct after 37.4 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Oct after 38.0 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Oct after 37.7 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Oct after 37.4 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Oct after 37.6 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Oct after 36.5 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Oct after 36.9 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Aug 2017
After · 5 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 · 529Every 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 Fernando Falcão fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 September 2017 to 28 September 2017 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 September 2017 to 21 September 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,476 hectares (104.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Fernando Falcão (6,914 ha, 1.4 %); Grajaú (3,630 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 21 September 2017 → 28 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.

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 September 2017 to 21 September 2017. 529 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.