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Paranatinga fire, 13 September 2017 Gaúcha do Norte, Paranatinga

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2017, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2017 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,367 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 997th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 423 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
5,367ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
13 Sept 2017 – 20 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
13 Sept
2017
Heat detections
173
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192021

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
45km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.2 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 192 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Gaúcha do Norte 8,642 inhabitants
    4,876 ha reached on 14 Sept
    0.3 %
  2. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    540 ha reached on 13 Sept
    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)
13 Sept 36.4 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Sept 37.0 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Sept 36.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Sept 35.0 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept 34.3 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept 36.7 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept 37.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept 36.6 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Sept after 33.8 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 44
22 Sept after 36.0 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Sept after 35.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Sept after 37.3 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Sept after 37.3 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Sept after 35.5 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Sept after 33.2 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
28 Sept after 30.6 °C 55 % 30 km/h 9.2 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 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 · 173Every 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 13 September 2017 and 20 September 2017: 8 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 5,367 hectares (53.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gaúcha do Norte (4,876 ha, 0.3 %); Paranatinga (540 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 45 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.

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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.