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BR · Brazil · –

Sapucaia fire, August 2017 Xinguara, Curionópolis, Sapucaia

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2017, 04:20 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2017 in Sapucaia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,846 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 67th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 957 with a page). Number 48 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
25,846ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
29 Aug 2017 – 21 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
29 Aug
2017
Heat detections
1,258
in a single hotspot: 274 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
710MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug21 Sept
21 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

29 Aug 2017 · 67 MW · 22 30 Aug 2017 · 145 MW · 23 31 Aug 2017 · 149 MW · 22 1 Sept 2017 · 199 MW · 19 2 Sept 2017 · 7 MW · 1 3 Sept 2017 · 496 MW · 26 4 Sept 2017 · 709 MW · 71 5 Sept 2017 · 43 MW · 15 6 Sept 2017 · 42 MW · 4 7 Sept 2017 · 435 MW · 13 8 Sept 2017 · 288 MW · 28 9 Sept 2017 · 421 MW · 56 10 Sept 2017 · 77 MW · 26 11 Sept 2017 · 106 MW · 9 12 Sept 2017 · 338 MW · 16 13 Sept 2017 · 2,081 MW · 108 14 Sept 2017 · 1,522 MW · 135 15 Sept 2017 · 1,659 MW · 174 16 Sept 2017 · 5,377 MW · 162 17 Sept 2017 · 1,921 MW · 221 18 Sept 2017 · 693 MW · 61 19 Sept 2017 · 238 MW · 33 20 Sept 2017 · 21 MW · 12 21 Sept 2017 · 2 MW · 1
29 Aug 3 Sept 8 Sept 16 Sept

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
46km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,047 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,713 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 16% of the area of London (258 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. 12,965 ha reached on 30 Aug
    3.4 %
  2. Curionópolis 19,950 inhabitants
    8,531 ha reached on 29 Aug
    3.6 %
  3. Sapucaia 52,893 inhabitants where it started
    3,816 ha reached on 29 Aug
    2.9 %
  4. Canaã dos Carajás 77,079 inhabitants
    1,934 ha reached on 16 Sept
    0.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area5.7 ha
Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 5.7 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with 60 days without rain: 55 % of the area in Brazil

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
29 Aug 34.2 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug 35.5 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 36.9 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Sept 34.2 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept 33.3 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 41
3 Sept 35.8 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
4 Sept 35.0 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Sept 35.8 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Sept 36.9 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Sept 35.6 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Sept 35.8 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Sept 35.1 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
10 Sept 36.9 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Sept 36.6 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Sept 36.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Sept 35.9 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Sept 36.6 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Sept 37.1 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Sept 36.2 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Sept 36.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Sept 36.7 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Sept 36.4 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 55
20 Sept 35.7 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept 35.3 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Sept after 35.3 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Sept after 35.5 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Sept after 34.5 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Sept after 34.1 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Sept after 35.7 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Sept after 35.3 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
28 Sept after 35.7 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Sept after 35.5 °C 45 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
30 Sept after 33.4 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Oct after 34.2 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 40.1, a minimum humidity of 43% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 22.

FWI at the start 40.1
Minimum humidity 43 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Conceição do Araguaia fire, September 2019
7,220 ha 16 days FWI 39.4 Min. humidity 41 % 231 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 11.5 mm on 26 Sept.

What happened to them

17 days
median duration
6,405 ha
median area
36 %
went past 10,000 ha
8.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 22 had it)

It was 4.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 24 days, against 17 days.

Only 3 of its 22 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 8.4 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
46km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 21 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 22, with a median of 8.4 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2017
After · 28 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 · 1,258Every 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 Sapucaia fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 August 2017 to 21 September 2017 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 August 2017 to 19 September 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 25,846 hectares (258.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Xinguara (12,965 ha, 3.4 %); Curionópolis (8,531 ha, 3.6 %); Sapucaia (3,816 ha, 2.9 %); Canaã dos Carajás (1,934 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 22. Their median duration was 17 days and their median area 6,405 ha; 36 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 3 of its 22 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 6 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 8.4 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 27,071 → 25,846 ha.
  2. Last day with fire: 19 September 2017 → 21 September 2017.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 August 2017 to 19 September 2017. 1,258 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.