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Pium fire, July 2017 Pium

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2017, 17:46 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2017 in Pium, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,382 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 539th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 422 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
5,382ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
23 Jul 2017 – 27 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2017
Heat detections
151
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul27 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627

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
48km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 374 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Pium 7,128 inhabitants where it started
    5,425 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.5 %

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)
23 Jul 35.6 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jul 34.5 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Jul 35.1 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul 33.3 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Jul 33.4 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jul after 33.4 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jul after 34.1 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jul after 33.4 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Jul after 33.3 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Aug after 34.5 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug after 35.6 °C 16 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug after 36.5 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug after 37.1 °C 19 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Aug after 37.2 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Aug after 37.2 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Aug after 35.7 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Aug after 36.6 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug after 37.8 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2017
After · 3 Aug 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 · 151Every 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 Pium fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2017 and 27 July 2017: 5 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 5,382 hectares (53.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pium (5,425 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.