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Formosa fire, 14 September 2017 Formosa

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2017, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2017 in Formosa, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,327 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 548 with a page). Number 104 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
14,327ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
14 Sept 2017 – 21 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Sept
2017
Heat detections
520
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept21 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718192021

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
40km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 28 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. Formosa 115,901 inhabitants where it started
    14,402 ha reached on 14 Sept
    2.5 %

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)
14 Sept 29.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Sept 29.1 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept 28.3 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Sept 28.4 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Sept 29.8 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Sept 29.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Sept 29.8 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Sept 27.2 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Sept after 25.0 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
23 Sept after 29.0 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Sept after 30.0 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Sept after 29.6 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Sept after 29.3 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Sept after 27.5 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
28 Sept after 28.6 °C 37 % 32 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2017
After · 28 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 · 520Every 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 14 September 2017 and 21 September 2017: 8 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 14,327 hectares (143.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Formosa (14,402 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.