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Paranatinga fire, 19 August 2017 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2017, 17:02 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2017 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,261 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 136th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 51 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
25,261ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
39days
19 Aug 2017 – 26 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Aug
2017
Heat detections
1,574
in a single hotspot: 422 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
19.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug26 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

19202324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.0 mm on 2 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    25,406 ha reached on 19 Aug
    1.0 %

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)
12 Aug 33.7 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 31.7 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Aug 32.6 °C 40 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Aug 33.9 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Aug 34.7 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug 32.8 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Aug 33.1 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug 34.0 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug 34.5 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Aug 31.3 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Aug 32.8 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Aug 32.8 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Aug 32.4 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Aug 33.1 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Aug 34.2 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug 34.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Aug 35.4 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug 35.0 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Aug 35.2 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Aug 35.6 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 35.6 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Sept 34.0 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept 32.7 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept 32.0 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept 32.6 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Sept 32.9 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Sept 34.1 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Sept 34.6 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Sept 34.8 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Sept 34.7 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Sept 35.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Sept 34.7 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Sept 33.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept 34.4 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Sept 35.6 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept 34.9 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Sept 33.3 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Sept 34.3 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Sept 34.6 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Sept 33.2 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Sept 32.3 °C 35 % 37 km/h 1.0 mm High 27
22 Sept 33.2 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Sept 33.7 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Sept 34.6 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Sept 33.4 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Sept 34.1 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Sept after 31.7 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Sept after 29.0 °C 58 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm High 23
29 Sept after 32.8 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Sept after 32.7 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
1 Oct after 31.5 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm High 25
2 Oct after 30.7 °C 56 % 44 km/h 12.0 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2017
After · 3 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 · 1,574Every 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 Paranatinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 August 2017 and 26 September 2017: 39 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 25,261 hectares (252.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (25,406 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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
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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.