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Planaltina fire, 7 October 2017 Planaltina

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2017, 04:22 UTC

The fire started on 7 October 2017 in Planaltina, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 31,311 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 548 with a page). Number 35 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
31,311ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
7 Oct 2017 – 22 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Oct
2017
Heat detections
1,218
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
10.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Oct22 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151617181920212223

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
48km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 27 Oct.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,433 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Planaltina 105,031 inhabitants where it started
    31,504 ha reached on 5 Oct
    12 %

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)
5 Oct 31.1 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
6 Oct 31.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Oct 32.5 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Oct 33.1 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Oct 33.5 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Oct 33.6 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Oct 33.2 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Oct 34.2 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Oct 34.5 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Oct 35.4 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Oct 37.0 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Oct 34.4 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Oct 32.5 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Oct 31.2 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Oct 32.5 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Oct 33.2 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Oct 33.7 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Oct 33.6 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Oct after 32.9 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Oct after 33.1 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Oct after 34.4 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Oct after 34.3 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Oct after 33.4 °C 33 % 32 km/h 1.1 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Sept 2017
After · 29 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 · 1,218Every 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 Planaltina fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 October 2017 and 22 October 2017: 16 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 31,311 hectares (313.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Planaltina (31,504 ha, 12 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.