Skip to content
worldfires
en
BR · Brazil · →

Paranatinga fire, 12 September 2017 Paranatinga, Campinápolis

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2017, 17:08 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2017 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,522 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1647th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 781 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
3,522ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
12 Sept 2017 – 15 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
12 Sept
2017
Heat detections
94
in a single hotspot: 107 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
492MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

15 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12 Sept 2017 · 721 MW · 37 13 Sept 2017 · 733 MW · 30 14 Sept 2017 · 429 MW · 9 15 Sept 2017 · 85 MW · 18
12 Sept 13 Sept 14 Sept 15 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
44km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.3 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,143 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    3,388 ha reached on 12 Sept
    0.1 %
  2. Campinápolis 15,347 inhabitants
    169 ha
    0.0 %

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 Sept 37.3 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Sept 36.0 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Sept 36.6 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept 36.5 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept after 35.2 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 34.3 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept after 36.3 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 37.4 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 36.3 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Sept after 32.6 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Sept after 35.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Sept after 35.4 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Sept after 37.4 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Sept after 36.8 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Sept after 35.3 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Sept after 31.8 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
28 Sept after 31.0 °C 53 % 22 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2017
After · 22 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 · 94Every 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 12 September 2017 and 15 September 2017: 4 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 3,522 hectares (35.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Paranatinga (3,388 ha, 0.1 %); Campinápolis (169 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.