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Palmeirais fire, September 2017 Palmeirais

Out · last detection 30 Oct 2017, 03:48 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2017 in Palmeirais, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,824 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 75th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 804 with a page). Number 125 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Palmeirais · 2025São Pedro do Piauí · 2025São Francisco do Maranhão · 2022Monsenhor Gil · 2025

Burnt area
12,824ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
30 Sept 2017 – 30 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Sept
2017
Heat detections
450
in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
178MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept30 Oct
30 Oct 2017

How it evolved, day by day

30 Sept 2017 · 5 MW · 1 2 Oct 2017 · 1 MW · 1 3 Oct 2017 · 103 MW · 15 4 Oct 2017 · 27 MW · 4 5 Oct 2017 · 167 MW · 15 6 Oct 2017 · 101 MW · 11 7 Oct 2017 · 5 MW · 2 8 Oct 2017 · 627 MW · 21 9 Oct 2017 · 556 MW · 37 10 Oct 2017 · 315 MW · 34 11 Oct 2017 · 268 MW · 12 12 Oct 2017 · 8 MW · 2 14 Oct 2017 · 68 MW · 8 15 Oct 2017 · 18 MW · 4 17 Oct 2017 · 74 MW · 5 18 Oct 2017 · 30 MW · 4 19 Oct 2017 · 57 MW · 14 20 Oct 2017 · 190 MW · 13 21 Oct 2017 · 79 MW · 14 22 Oct 2017 · 450 MW · 31 23 Oct 2017 · 364 MW · 69 24 Oct 2017 · 883 MW · 48 25 Oct 2017 · 63 MW · 19 26 Oct 2017 · 272 MW · 35 27 Oct 2017 · 71 MW · 11 28 Oct 2017 · 14 MW · 5 29 Oct 2017 · 140 MW · 10 30 Oct 2017 · 29 MW · 5
30 Sept 5 Oct 9 Oct 14 Oct 19 Oct 23 Oct 24 Oct 27 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
43km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 7 Nov.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 299 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.1% of the area of London (128 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. Palmeirais 13,264 inhabitants where it started
    12,909 ha reached on 30 Sept
    8.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
30 Sept 36.9 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Oct 37.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Oct 37.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Oct 37.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Oct 37.1 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Oct 36.5 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Oct 36.4 °C 35 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Oct 35.3 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Oct 36.7 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Oct 37.1 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Oct 36.5 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Oct 36.2 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm High 30
12 Oct 36.6 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Oct 37.2 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Oct 37.5 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Oct 37.7 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
16 Oct 35.8 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
17 Oct 36.9 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Oct 36.5 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Oct 36.7 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Oct 37.8 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Oct 38.0 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Oct 38.0 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Oct 37.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Oct 37.8 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Oct 37.9 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Oct 38.0 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Oct 36.4 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Oct 37.0 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Oct 37.2 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Oct 36.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
31 Oct after 32.7 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
1 Nov after 35.4 °C 45 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
2 Nov after 36.1 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
3 Nov after 35.9 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Nov after 36.3 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Nov after 37.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Nov after 37.0 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Nov after 35.2 °C 47 % 28 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2017
After · 6 Nov 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 · 450Every 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 Palmeirais fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 September 2017 to 30 October 2017 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 October 2017 to 30 October 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,824 hectares (128.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Palmeirais (12,909 ha, 8.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 2 October 2017 → 30 September 2017.

RSS Changes to this page

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 October 2017 to 30 October 2017. 450 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.