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Marabá fire, 10 September 2017 Marabá

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2017, 04:39 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2017 in Marabá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,446 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 460th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1096 with a page). Number 415 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
5,446ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
10 Sept 2017 – 20 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Sept
2017
Heat detections
212
in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

121314151617181920

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
45km/h · peak gust
27%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. Marabá 266,533 inhabitants where it started
    5,485 ha reached on 12 Sept
    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)
10 Sept 36.8 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Sept 36.1 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Sept 36.9 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Sept 36.2 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Sept 36.3 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Sept 36.6 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Sept 36.7 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept 36.4 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Sept 36.9 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept 36.4 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm High 36
20 Sept 35.7 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Sept after 35.6 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Sept after 35.8 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Sept after 35.8 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Sept after 34.8 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Sept after 33.8 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
26 Sept after 35.9 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Sept after 35.2 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Sept after 35.4 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Sept after 35.2 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
30 Sept after 34.3 °C 46 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Oct after 35.0 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Oct after 34.8 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Oct after 35.9 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2017
After · 27 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 · 212Every 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 Marabá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2017 and 20 September 2017: 11 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 5,446 hectares (54.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Marabá (5,485 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 45 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.