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Barcelos fire, 21 January 2016 Barcelos

Out · last detection 4 Feb 2016, 05:16 UTC

The fire started on 21 January 2016 in Barcelos, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,340 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 45 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
14,340ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
21 Jan 2016 – 4 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 Jan
2016
Heat detections
646
in a single hotspot: 250 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
6.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jan4 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526272829303114

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
48km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.7 mm on 5 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
    14,436 ha reached on 14 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)
14 Jan 36.6 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Jan 37.5 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Jan 37.0 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
17 Jan 35.9 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
18 Jan 35.3 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Jan 33.8 °C 50 % 24 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 4
20 Jan 32.7 °C 56 % 19 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 2
21 Jan 31.9 °C 64 % 22 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 1
22 Jan 28.5 °C 78 % 25 km/h 15.8 mm Very low 0
23 Jan 33.4 °C 57 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 1
24 Jan 36.0 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
25 Jan 36.2 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
26 Jan 36.9 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
27 Jan 35.1 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
28 Jan 37.1 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
29 Jan 36.3 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Jan 37.9 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
31 Jan 35.1 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
1 Feb 35.2 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
2 Feb 31.3 °C 64 % 34 km/h 12.2 mm Very low 0
3 Feb 32.2 °C 59 % 35 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 1
4 Feb 33.7 °C 53 % 31 km/h 1.6 mm Very low 2
5 Feb after 30.7 °C 71 % 38 km/h 18.7 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jan 2016
After · 11 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 · 646Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Barcelos fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 January 2016 and 4 February 2016: 15 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 14,340 hectares (143.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barcelos (14,436 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 48 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.