Skip to content
worldfires
en
BR · Brazil · →

Gilbués fire, September 2017 Gilbués, Bom Jesus

Out · last detection 4 Oct 2017, 16:12 UTC

The fire started on 26 September 2017 in Gilbués, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,054 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 504th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 804 with a page). Number 631 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gilbués · 2022Gilbués · 2026Bom Jesus · 2021

Burnt area
4,054ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
26 Sept 2017 – 4 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
26 Sept
2017
Heat detections
157
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
322MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Sept4 Oct
4 Oct 2017

How it evolved, day by day

26 Sept 2017 · 26 MW · 6 27 Sept 2017 · 117 MW · 10 28 Sept 2017 · 87 MW · 6 29 Sept 2017 · 119 MW · 35 30 Sept 2017 · 2,088 MW · 65 1 Oct 2017 · 39 MW · 13 2 Oct 2017 · 86 MW · 19 4 Oct 2017 · 19 MW · 1
26 Sept 28 Sept 30 Sept 2 Oct

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
52km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 101 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.6% of the area of London (41 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. Gilbués 10,892 inhabitants where it started
    4,077 ha reached on 26 Sept
    1.2 %
  2. Bom Jesus 28,796 inhabitants
    0 ha reached on 28 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)
26 Sept 35.6 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Sept 36.4 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Sept 37.5 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Sept 37.3 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Sept 37.0 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Oct 37.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Oct 38.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Oct 38.1 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Oct 37.4 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Oct after 36.7 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Oct after 36.4 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Oct after 36.9 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Oct after 36.0 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Oct after 35.2 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Oct after 35.5 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Oct after 37.1 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Oct after 36.8 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Oct after 37.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Oct after 38.1 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Oct after 38.3 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Oct after 35.5 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Oct after 35.6 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Sept 2017
After · 11 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 · 157Every 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 Gilbués fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 September 2017 and 4 October 2017: 9 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 4,054 hectares (40.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gilbués (4,077 ha, 1.2 %); Bom Jesus (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 157 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.

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.