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Paranatinga fire, 23 August 2017 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2017, 16:43 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2017 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,950 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 420th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 159 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

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Suggestions: Paranatinga · 2017Paranatinga · 2019Paranatinga · 2023Paranatinga · 2026

Burnt area
10,950ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
23 Aug 2017 – 11 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Aug
2017
Heat detections
740
in a single hotspot: 294 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
677MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug11 Sept
11 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

23 Aug 2017 · 52 MW · 6 24 Aug 2017 · 97 MW · 10 25 Aug 2017 · 94 MW · 7 26 Aug 2017 · 10 MW · 3 27 Aug 2017 · 44 MW · 5 28 Aug 2017 · 158 MW · 15 29 Aug 2017 · 155 MW · 17 30 Aug 2017 · 9 MW · 3 31 Aug 2017 · 431 MW · 23 1 Sept 2017 · 159 MW · 16 2 Sept 2017 · 222 MW · 36 3 Sept 2017 · 340 MW · 68 4 Sept 2017 · 968 MW · 62 5 Sept 2017 · 5,900 MW · 111 6 Sept 2017 · 3,485 MW · 175 7 Sept 2017 · 193 MW · 30 8 Sept 2017 · 531 MW · 20 9 Sept 2017 · 258 MW · 30 10 Sept 2017 · 387 MW · 15 11 Sept 2017 · 39 MW · 4
23 Aug 26 Aug 29 Aug 1 Sept 4 Sept 5 Sept 7 Sept 10 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

39°high
46km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,744 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.9% of the area of London (110 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. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    11,012 ha reached on 19 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)
19 Aug 36.8 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Aug 36.6 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug 34.2 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Aug 36.3 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug 35.9 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Aug 35.8 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Aug 35.7 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug 36.0 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug 37.7 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug 37.7 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug 37.2 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug 38.9 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 37.9 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept 38.7 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept 37.1 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Sept 35.9 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Sept 34.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Sept 35.1 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Sept 35.7 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept 36.2 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Sept 36.6 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Sept 37.7 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Sept 37.6 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept 37.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Sept after 37.8 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 36.0 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Sept after 36.8 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Sept after 36.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Sept after 35.5 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept after 34.7 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept after 37.0 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept after 37.3 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Sept after 36.3 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Sept after 33.4 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Sept after 35.8 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Sept after 35.9 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Sept after 36.9 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Sept after 37.1 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Sept after 35.7 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2017
After · 18 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 · 740Every 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 23 August 2017 and 11 September 2017: 20 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 10,950 hectares (109.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (11,012 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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. 740 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.