Skip to content
worldfires
en
BR · Brazil · →

Xinguara fire, September 2017 Sapucaia, Xinguara

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2017, 04:39 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2017 in Xinguara, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,937 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 158th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1096 with a page). Number 122 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Rio Maria · 2024Rio Maria · 2020Rio Maria · 2017Sapucaia · 2017

Burnt area
12,937ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
10 Sept 2017 – 20 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
10 Sept
2017
Heat detections
424
in a single hotspot: 155 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
629MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept20 Sept
20 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

10 Sept 2017 · 359 MW · 10 11 Sept 2017 · 518 MW · 31 12 Sept 2017 · 1,582 MW · 73 13 Sept 2017 · 3,350 MW · 191 14 Sept 2017 · 172 MW · 32 15 Sept 2017 · 379 MW · 52 16 Sept 2017 · 149 MW · 12 17 Sept 2017 · 206 MW · 14 18 Sept 2017 · 134 MW · 3 19 Sept 2017 · 66 MW · 5 20 Sept 2017 · 1 MW · 1
10 Sept 12 Sept 13 Sept 14 Sept 16 Sept 18 Sept 20 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
43km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.2% of the area of London (129 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. Sapucaia 52,893 inhabitants
    8,643 ha reached on 10 Sept
    6.6 %
  2. Xinguara where it started
    4,382 ha reached on 10 Sept
    1.2 %

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 Sept 37.2 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Sept 36.9 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Sept 37.0 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Sept 36.1 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Sept 36.9 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Sept 37.4 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Sept 36.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept 36.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept 37.0 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Sept 37.2 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Sept 36.4 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Sept after 35.7 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Sept after 35.9 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Sept after 35.9 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Sept after 35.0 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Sept after 34.3 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Sept after 36.0 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Sept after 35.9 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Sept after 36.0 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Sept after 35.7 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
30 Sept after 33.4 °C 51 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2017
After · 27 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 · 424Every 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 Xinguara fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2017 and 20 September 2017: 11 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 12,937 hectares (129.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sapucaia (8,643 ha, 6.6 %); Xinguara (4,382 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

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. 424 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.