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Taguatinga fire, August 2017 Taguatinga, Luís Eduardo Magalhães, Aurora do Tocantins

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2017, 16:36 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2017 in Taguatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,793 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 257th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 212 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area
8,793ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
10 Aug 2017 – 21 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
10 Aug
2017
Heat detections
322
in a single hotspot: 80 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug21 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718192021

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
47km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 65 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Taguatinga 14,011 inhabitants where it started
    5,712 ha reached on 10 Aug
    2.4 %
  2. Luís Eduardo Magalhães 107,909 inhabitants
    3,030 ha reached on 15 Aug
    0.8 %
  3. Aurora do Tocantins 3,342 inhabitants
    110 ha
    0.2 %

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)
10 Aug 34.8 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Aug 34.4 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Aug 33.5 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Aug 33.8 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Aug 34.8 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Aug 34.5 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Aug 32.9 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Aug 33.5 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Aug 34.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Aug 35.0 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Aug 34.3 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Aug 34.4 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug after 32.1 °C 29 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Aug after 32.0 °C 30 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Aug after 30.5 °C 33 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Aug after 31.5 °C 31 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Aug after 32.4 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Aug after 33.2 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 34.4 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Aug after 34.3 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Aug after 34.6 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug after 35.5 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2017
After · 28 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 · 322Every 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 Taguatinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2017 and 21 August 2017: 12 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 8,793 hectares (87.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Taguatinga (5,712 ha, 2.4 %); Luís Eduardo Magalhães (3,030 ha, 0.8 %); Aurora do Tocantins (110 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.

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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.

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.