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Pium fire, 31 August 2017 Pium

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2017, 17:21 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2017 in Pium, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 74,474 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 7 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
74,474ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
31 Aug 2017 – 24 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
31 Aug
2017
Heat detections
3,186
in a single hotspot: 362 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
47.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3112345678910111213141516171819202122232425

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
51km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 1 Oct.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,653 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Pium 7,128 inhabitants where it started
    75,022 ha reached on 30 Aug
    7.4 %

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)
28 Aug 38.4 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Aug 38.4 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Aug 38.0 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
31 Aug 38.7 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Sept 38.2 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept 36.9 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Sept 36.3 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Sept 35.0 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 Sept 36.1 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Sept 36.8 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Sept 37.8 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Sept 36.3 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Sept 38.4 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Sept 38.1 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Sept 39.0 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Sept 37.5 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Sept 37.7 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Sept 37.8 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Sept 38.5 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Sept 37.3 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Sept 37.1 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Sept 38.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Sept 38.9 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
20 Sept 38.1 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Sept 36.9 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 53
22 Sept 38.3 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
23 Sept 38.7 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Sept 39.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
25 Sept after 38.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Sept after 38.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Sept after 39.1 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
28 Sept after 37.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Sept after 38.5 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 54
30 Sept after 35.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 4.0 mm Moderate 14
1 Oct after 34.4 °C 34 % 30 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2017
After · 1 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 · 3,186Every 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 31 August 2017 and 24 September 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 74,474 hectares (744.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pium (75,022 ha, 7.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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.

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.