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Água Azul do Norte fire, July 2016 Água Azul do Norte, Parauapebas

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2016, 17:03 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2016 in Água Azul do Norte, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 49 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,407 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 102th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1106 with a page). Number 27 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Água Azul do Norte · 2024Água Azul do Norte · 2017Parauapebas · 2024Parauapebas · 2017

Burnt area
19,407ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
49days
21 Jul 2016 – 7 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
21 Jul
2016
Heat detections
1,203
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Average daily power
125MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul7 Sept
7 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

21 Jul 2016 · 16 MW · 2 22 Jul 2016 · 14 MW · 3 25 Jul 2016 · 2 MW · 1 26 Jul 2016 · 4 MW · 3 27 Jul 2016 · 11 MW · 1 28 Jul 2016 · 15 MW · 4 29 Jul 2016 · 5 MW · 2 31 Jul 2016 · 2 MW · 2 1 Aug 2016 · 28 MW · 1 2 Aug 2016 · 168 MW · 10 3 Aug 2016 · 195 MW · 13 4 Aug 2016 · 15 MW · 9 5 Aug 2016 · 54 MW · 18 6 Aug 2016 · 221 MW · 37 7 Aug 2016 · 419 MW · 48 8 Aug 2016 · 342 MW · 45 9 Aug 2016 · 140 MW · 43 10 Aug 2016 · 247 MW · 91 11 Aug 2016 · 259 MW · 87 12 Aug 2016 · 4 MW · 2 15 Aug 2016 · 22 MW · 9 16 Aug 2016 · 109 MW · 38 17 Aug 2016 · 464 MW · 90 18 Aug 2016 · 101 MW · 30 19 Aug 2016 · 54 MW · 13 20 Aug 2016 · 69 MW · 42 21 Aug 2016 · 539 MW · 132 22 Aug 2016 · 428 MW · 105 23 Aug 2016 · 118 MW · 49 24 Aug 2016 · 57 MW · 6 26 Aug 2016 · 61 MW · 25 27 Aug 2016 · 146 MW · 44 28 Aug 2016 · 122 MW · 24 29 Aug 2016 · 2 MW · 1 30 Aug 2016 · 24 MW · 4 31 Aug 2016 · 149 MW · 45 1 Sept 2016 · 472 MW · 93 2 Sept 2016 · 0 MW · 1 3 Sept 2016 · 6 MW · 1 5 Sept 2016 · 12 MW · 9 6 Sept 2016 · 18 MW · 13 7 Sept 2016 · 103 MW · 7
21 Jul 29 Jul 5 Aug 11 Aug 19 Aug 21 Aug 26 Aug 1 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

35°high
47km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 8 Sept.

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 12% of the area of London (194 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. Água Azul do Norte 18,080 inhabitants where it started
    16,498 ha reached on 21 Jul
    2.3 %
  2. Parauapebas 267,836 inhabitants
    3,032 ha reached on 17 Aug
    0.4 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 Rain Danger (FWI)
21 Jul 34.1 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Jul 34.4 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Jul 31.7 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Jul 32.6 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jul 33.0 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jul 33.3 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jul 33.4 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Jul 33.2 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jul 33.8 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Jul 32.9 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Jul 31.9 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Aug 32.7 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug 32.7 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug 33.5 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Aug 33.7 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Aug 34.2 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Aug 33.4 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Aug 34.6 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug 35.0 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug 34.6 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Aug 34.8 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Aug 34.5 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Aug 33.9 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Aug 33.9 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
14 Aug 32.5 °C 49 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Aug 34.0 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Aug 34.3 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Aug 35.3 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Aug 34.8 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
19 Aug 33.4 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
20 Aug 33.4 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Aug 34.2 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Aug 34.0 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Aug 33.1 °C 46 % 23 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17
24 Aug 32.0 °C 49 % 40 km/h 0.7 mm High 22
25 Aug 32.7 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
26 Aug 33.9 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Aug 33.3 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
28 Aug 32.3 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
29 Aug 32.0 °C 52 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
30 Aug 34.2 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Aug 34.5 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Sept 34.0 °C 47 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
2 Sept 32.4 °C 50 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
3 Sept 31.4 °C 53 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 Sept 32.9 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Sept 34.2 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Sept 33.5 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
7 Sept 34.4 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
8 Sept after 33.3 °C 50 % 29 km/h 3.4 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2016
After · 14 Sept 2016

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 · 1,203Every 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 Água Azul do Norte fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 July 2016 to 7 September 2016 (49 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 July 2016 to 1 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 19,407 hectares (194.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Água Azul do Norte (16,498 ha, 2.3 %); Parauapebas (3,032 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 ›

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. Last day with fire: 1 September 2016 → 7 September 2016.
  2. Start date: 25 July 2016 → 21 July 2016.

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.

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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 July 2016 to 1 September 2016. 1,203 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.