How long did the Vale do Paraíso fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 August 2017 and 12 August 2017: 9 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 4,721 hectares (47.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouro Preto do Oeste (3,475 ha, 1.8 %); Vale do Paraíso (1,271 ha, 1.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class 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 · 2017-08-04 → 2017-08-12

Vale do Paraíso fire, August 2017 Ouro Preto do Oeste, Vale do Paraíso

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2017, 17:28 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2017 in Vale do Paraíso, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,721 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 135th largest in Rondônia since 2016 (of 300 with a page). Number 516 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouro Preto do Oeste · 2016 Ouro Preto do Oeste · 2019 Ouro Preto do Oeste · 2018 Ouro Preto do Oeste · 2020

Burnt area: 4,721ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 4 Aug 2017 – 12 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 4 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 357; in a single hotspot: 716 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 829MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug12 Aug

Play back 13 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

4 Aug 6 Aug 8 Aug 10 Aug 12 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

37°high

35km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,559 ha in 2016.

3,413 ha Ouro Preto do Oeste fire, August 2016 4,750 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3% of the area of London (47 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

Ouro Preto do Oeste

3,475 ha reached on 5 Aug

1.8 %
Vale do Paraíso 6,479 inhabitants where it started

1,271 ha reached on 4 Aug

1.3 %

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)
4 Aug	34.8 °C	29 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Aug	35.6 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
6 Aug	35.6 °C	26 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
7 Aug	36.5 °C	23 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
8 Aug	36.0 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
9 Aug	36.8 °C	28 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
10 Aug	34.9 °C	44 %	30 km/h	3.9 mm	Low 10
11 Aug	31.0 °C	48 %	26 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 18
12 Aug	33.9 °C	43 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 22
13 Aug after	34.9 °C	42 %	29 km/h	0.7 mm	High 22
14 Aug after	33.8 °C	43 %	23 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 16
15 Aug after	36.0 °C	36 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
16 Aug after	34.0 °C	43 %	19 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
17 Aug after	28.5 °C	71 %	24 km/h	12.4 mm	Very low 0
18 Aug after	31.1 °C	60 %	23 km/h	3.4 mm	Very low 2
19 Aug after	34.5 °C	41 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
20 Aug after	34.4 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
21 Aug after	29.9 °C	50 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
22 Aug after	32.8 °C	42 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
23 Aug after	35.1 °C	36 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 21
24 Aug after	33.8 °C	43 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
25 Aug after	35.0 °C	35 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	High 23
26 Aug after	35.5 °C	27 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
27 Aug after	37.2 °C	25 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
28 Aug after	35.9 °C	28 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
29 Aug after	36.0 °C	27 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Jul 2017

After · 19 Aug 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 · 357Every 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 Vale do Paraíso fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 August 2017 and 12 August 2017: 9 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 4,721 hectares (47.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouro Preto do Oeste (3,475 ha, 1.8 %); Vale do Paraíso (1,271 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 357 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.

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