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Formosa fire, 1 September 2017 Formosa

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2017, 16:54 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2017 in Formosa, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,493 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 177th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 548 with a page). Number 314 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
6,493ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
1 Sept 2017 – 4 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Sept
2017
Heat detections
196
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12345

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
45km/h · peak gust
23%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.

What happened to each town

  1. Formosa 115,901 inhabitants where it started
    6,547 ha reached on 1 Sept
    1.1 %

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)
1 Sept 29.9 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept 28.2 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Sept 27.3 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept 26.8 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept after 27.7 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Sept after 28.9 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Sept after 30.8 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept after 30.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Sept after 29.3 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Sept after 29.9 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Sept after 30.7 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Sept after 29.0 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 28.7 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept after 29.0 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept after 29.4 °C 28 % 39 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 · 25 Aug 2017
After · 11 Sept 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 · 196Every 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 Formosa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2017 and 4 September 2017: 4 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 6,493 hectares (64.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Formosa (6,547 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 45 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.