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Lagoa do Mato fire, August 2017 Parnarama, Lagoa do Mato

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2017, 16:19 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2017 in Lagoa do Mato, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,186 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 223th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 451 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lagoa do Mato · 2016Barão de Grajaú · 2025Buriti Bravo · 2017

Burnt area
5,186ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
26 Aug 2017 – 6 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
26 Aug
2017
Heat detections
226
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
113MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug6 Sept
7 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

26 Aug 2017 · 208 MW · 18 27 Aug 2017 · 96 MW · 18 28 Aug 2017 · 344 MW · 38 29 Aug 2017 · 110 MW · 26 30 Aug 2017 · 133 MW · 14 31 Aug 2017 · 126 MW · 33 1 Sept 2017 · 18 MW · 3 2 Sept 2017 · 119 MW · 13 3 Sept 2017 · 132 MW · 18 4 Sept 2017 · 132 MW · 19 5 Sept 2017 · 18 MW · 11 6 Sept 2017 · 20 MW · 3 7 Sept 2017 · 13 MW · 2
26 Aug 28 Aug 30 Aug 1 Sept 3 Sept 5 Sept 7 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

37°high
58km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,548 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.3% of the area of London (52 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. Parnarama 31,250 inhabitants
    4,539 ha reached on 26 Aug
    1.4 %
  2. Lagoa do Mato 10,572 inhabitants where it started
    683 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.4 %

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 Aug 34.2 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug 34.4 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Aug 34.8 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Aug 35.0 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Aug 35.3 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Aug 36.7 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Sept 35.6 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Sept 34.6 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept 34.1 °C 29 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Sept 34.0 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Sept 33.5 °C 35 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Sept 35.1 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Sept after 34.2 °C 37 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept after 35.6 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Sept after 34.8 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Sept after 35.0 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Sept after 35.2 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Sept after 35.4 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 34.9 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept after 35.2 °C 33 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept after 34.5 °C 31 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept after 34.5 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Sept after 34.8 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept after 35.2 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 35.8 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Sept after 35.6 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Sept after 35.5 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Sept after 34.9 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Sept after 35.1 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2017
After · 13 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 · 226Every 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 Lagoa do Mato fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2017 and 6 September 2017: 12 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 5,186 hectares (51.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Parnarama (4,539 ha, 1.4 %); Lagoa do Mato (683 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

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. 226 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.