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Parauapebas fire, 13 September 2017 Parauapebas

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2017, 16:57 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2017 in Parauapebas, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,200 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 250th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1096 with a page). Number 198 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
9,200ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
13 Sept 2017 – 7 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Sept
2017
Heat detections
468
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept7 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617181920212223242526272829301234567

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
45km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 9 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. Parauapebas 267,836 inhabitants where it started
    9,262 ha reached on 12 Sept
    1.3 %

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 35.8 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Sept 33.5 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Sept 36.1 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Sept 36.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept 35.7 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Sept 34.7 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept 35.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Sept 36.2 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Sept 33.9 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
21 Sept 32.9 °C 49 % 42 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 21
22 Sept 34.1 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
23 Sept 34.2 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Sept 34.8 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Sept 34.7 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Sept 34.3 °C 43 % 30 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 19
27 Sept 34.8 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Sept 35.4 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
29 Sept 34.9 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
30 Sept 32.6 °C 51 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
1 Oct 33.9 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Oct 35.4 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Oct 35.4 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
4 Oct 35.8 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Oct 35.1 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
6 Oct 33.9 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Oct 34.0 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
8 Oct after 32.9 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
9 Oct after 34.5 °C 47 % 27 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Sept 2017
After · 14 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 · 468Every 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 Parauapebas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 September 2017 and 7 October 2017: 25 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 9,200 hectares (92.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Parauapebas (9,262 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

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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.