How long did the Sucupira do Norte fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 August 2017 to 4 September 2017 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 August 2017 to 28 August 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,972 hectares (39.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pastos Bons (3,009 ha, 1.8 %); Sucupira do Norte (987 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 55 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.

BR · Brazil · 2017-08-09 → 2017-09-04

Sucupira do Norte fire, August 2017 Pastos Bons, Sucupira do Norte

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2017, 17:09 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2017 in Sucupira do Norte, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,972 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 348th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 608 with a page). Number 652 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mirador · 2020 Colinas · 2016 Mirador · 2017 Mirador · 2025

Burnt area: 3,972ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 27days; 9 Aug 2017 – 4 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 9 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 222; in a single hotspot: 180 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 133MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug4 Sept

Play back 30 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

9 Aug 15 Aug 18 Aug 21 Aug 23 Aug 24 Aug 27 Aug 30 Aug

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high

55km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 174 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.5% of the area of London (40 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

Pastos Bons 18,802 inhabitants

3,009 ha reached on 9 Aug

1.8 %
Sucupira do Norte 10,238 inhabitants where it started

987 ha reached on 9 Aug

0.9 %

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 area0.15 ha

Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.15 hectares of built-up land and about 30 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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Danger (FWI)
9 Aug	34.6 °C	31 %	37 km/h	High 35
10 Aug	35.0 °C	31 %	30 km/h	High 32
11 Aug	33.7 °C	37 %	23 km/h	High 31
12 Aug	33.5 °C	33 %	42 km/h	High 38
13 Aug	34.2 °C	33 %	38 km/h	High 37
14 Aug	35.1 °C	34 %	32 km/h	High 33
15 Aug	35.1 °C	31 %	32 km/h	High 34
16 Aug	33.6 °C	36 %	40 km/h	High 38
17 Aug	33.8 °C	36 %	36 km/h	High 36
18 Aug	34.1 °C	36 %	31 km/h	High 35
19 Aug	34.5 °C	35 %	40 km/h	Very high 39
20 Aug	33.0 °C	43 %	43 km/h	High 36
21 Aug	34.8 °C	37 %	34 km/h	High 31
22 Aug	34.5 °C	33 %	42 km/h	Very high 39
23 Aug	33.3 °C	31 %	51 km/h	Very high 42
24 Aug	32.8 °C	37 %	55 km/h	Very high 44
25 Aug	33.8 °C	36 %	51 km/h	Very high 40
26 Aug	34.2 °C	31 %	42 km/h	Very high 39
27 Aug	34.1 °C	34 %	42 km/h	Very high 38
28 Aug	34.7 °C	31 %	43 km/h	Very high 38
29 Aug	34.9 °C	30 %	41 km/h	Very high 38
30 Aug	35.4 °C	25 %	42 km/h	Very high 42
31 Aug	36.4 °C	25 %	37 km/h	Very high 41
1 Sept	35.5 °C	30 %	34 km/h	Very high 39
2 Sept	34.2 °C	31 %	45 km/h	Very high 45
3 Sept	33.6 °C	28 %	53 km/h	Extreme 50
4 Sept	33.4 °C	31 %	57 km/h	Extreme 51
5 Sept after	33.2 °C	35 %	57 km/h	Extreme 51
6 Sept after	34.9 °C	33 %	53 km/h	Very high 49
7 Sept after	34.0 °C	36 %	52 km/h	Very high 45
8 Sept after	35.0 °C	33 %	42 km/h	Very high 41
9 Sept after	34.3 °C	29 %	47 km/h	Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Aug 2017

After · 11 Sept 2017

Before After

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 · 222Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sucupira do Norte fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 August 2017 to 4 September 2017 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 August 2017 to 28 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,972 hectares (39.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pastos Bons (3,009 ha, 1.8 %); Sucupira do Norte (987 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 55 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 28 August 2017 → 4 September 2017.
25 October 2026 Start date: 13 August 2017 → 9 August 2017.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 August 2017 to 28 August 2017. 222 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.

Where it burned