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Barcelos fire, 7 January 2016 Barcelos

Out · last detection 22 Feb 2016, 17:19 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2016 in Barcelos, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 47 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,672 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

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 24th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 49 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
13,672ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
47days
7 Jan 2016 – 22 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Jan
2016
Heat detections
974
in a single hotspot: 188 MW
Danger at start
11
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
7.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan22 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

791011121314151617181921232425262728293031146789131415161718192122

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
51km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 27.7 mm on 23 Feb.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Barcelos 18,834 inhabitants where it started
    13,764 ha reached on 7 Jan
    0.1 %

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)
7 Jan 35.2 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
8 Jan 36.2 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
9 Jan 36.2 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
10 Jan 37.5 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
11 Jan 37.1 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Jan 37.6 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
13 Jan 36.7 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
14 Jan 36.8 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Jan 37.9 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Jan 37.5 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
17 Jan 35.9 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
18 Jan 35.5 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Jan 34.3 °C 47 % 25 km/h 1.2 mm Low 10
20 Jan 32.7 °C 58 % 18 km/h 4.7 mm Very low 2
21 Jan 32.1 °C 59 % 25 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 1
22 Jan 28.4 °C 75 % 25 km/h 15.4 mm Very low 0
23 Jan 33.9 °C 57 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 1
24 Jan 36.6 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
25 Jan 36.4 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
26 Jan 37.2 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
27 Jan 35.3 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Jan 37.4 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Jan 36.8 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
30 Jan 38.2 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
31 Jan 35.6 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 18
1 Feb 35.3 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
2 Feb 31.6 °C 62 % 35 km/h 9.0 mm Very low 1
3 Feb 33.0 °C 54 % 34 km/h 6.5 mm Very low 1
4 Feb 35.0 °C 46 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 5
5 Feb 29.6 °C 75 % 37 km/h 27.0 mm Very low 0
6 Feb 33.5 °C 55 % 50 km/h 1.0 mm Very low 1
7 Feb 34.0 °C 51 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 5
8 Feb 34.9 °C 48 % 48 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 5
9 Feb 34.3 °C 54 % 50 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 2
10 Feb 31.2 °C 68 % 45 km/h 30.1 mm Very low 0
11 Feb 28.7 °C 80 % 30 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 0
12 Feb 32.3 °C 64 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm Very low 0
13 Feb 32.8 °C 51 % 34 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 2
14 Feb 35.3 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
15 Feb 35.1 °C 47 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
16 Feb 35.2 °C 46 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
17 Feb 36.1 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Low 10
18 Feb 35.2 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.9 mm Low 8
19 Feb 33.4 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.7 mm Low 7
20 Feb 30.9 °C 72 % 34 km/h 17.1 mm Very low 0
21 Feb 34.1 °C 50 % 51 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 2
22 Feb 35.3 °C 49 % 37 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 2
23 Feb after 29.4 °C 77 % 34 km/h 27.7 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Dec 2015
After · 29 Feb 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 · 974Every 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 Barcelos fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 January 2016 and 22 February 2016: 47 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 13,672 hectares (136.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barcelos (13,764 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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.