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Amarante do Maranhão fire, October 2016 Amarante do Maranhão, Arame

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2016, 04:01 UTC

The fire started on 11 October 2016 in Amarante do Maranhão, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,180 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 224th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 262 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
5,180ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
11 Oct 2016 – 21 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
11 Oct
2016
Heat detections
297
in a single hotspot: 163 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Oct21 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
44km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.9 mm on 31 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Amarante do Maranhão 37,085 inhabitants where it started
    5,209 ha reached on 11 Oct
    0.7 %
  2. Arame 25,517 inhabitants
    2 ha reached on 11 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
11 Oct 36.3 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Oct 34.3 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
13 Oct 34.6 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
14 Oct 35.3 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Oct 35.7 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Oct 36.0 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
17 Oct 33.6 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 17
18 Oct 35.5 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
19 Oct 35.7 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 Oct 33.0 °C 53 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
21 Oct 31.3 °C 57 % 29 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 5
22 Oct after 32.8 °C 57 % 28 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 2
23 Oct after 33.2 °C 57 % 34 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 2
24 Oct after 31.4 °C 58 % 36 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 2
25 Oct after 34.7 °C 48 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm Low 8
26 Oct after 33.5 °C 55 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm Low 11
27 Oct after 33.0 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 12
28 Oct after 33.6 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
29 Oct after 32.8 °C 50 % 23 km/h 0.9 mm Low 9
30 Oct after 33.4 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm Low 10
31 Oct after 31.7 °C 58 % 39 km/h 4.9 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Oct 2016
After · 28 Oct 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 · 297Every 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 Amarante do Maranhão fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 October 2016 and 21 October 2016: 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 5,180 hectares (51.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Amarante do Maranhão (5,209 ha, 0.7 %); Arame (2 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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.

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.