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Barreiras fire, August 2016 Ponte Alta do Bom Jesus, Barreiras

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2016, 16:37 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2016 in Barreiras, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,077 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 128th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 138 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
8,077ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
12 Aug 2016 – 18 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
12 Aug
2016
Heat detections
165
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
44km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Ponte Alta do Bom Jesus 4,220 inhabitants
    4,649 ha reached on 13 Aug
    2.7 %
  2. Barreiras 159,734 inhabitants where it started
    3,475 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
12 Aug 33.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug 32.9 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug 32.4 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Aug 33.8 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug 33.8 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug 33.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug 34.4 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug after 33.9 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug after 33.3 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Aug after 34.6 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Aug after 33.4 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Aug after 34.1 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Aug after 31.3 °C 35 % 55 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 49
25 Aug after 29.2 °C 36 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Aug after 31.0 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug after 32.0 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 29.6 °C 37 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug after 31.7 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2016
After · 25 Aug 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 · 165Every 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 Barreiras fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2016 and 18 August 2016: 7 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 8,077 hectares (80.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ponte Alta do Bom Jesus (4,649 ha, 2.7 %); Barreiras (3,475 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.

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.