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Cláudia fire, September 2016 Cláudia

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2016, 16:31 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2016 in Cláudia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,815 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1508th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 436 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
3,815ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
10 Sept 2016 – 14 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Sept
2016
Heat detections
217
in a single hotspot: 419 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
7.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
40km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 16 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Cláudia 9,593 inhabitants where it started
    3,837 ha reached on 10 Sept
    1.0 %

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)
5 Sept 33.5 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Sept 32.5 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Sept 33.5 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Sept 34.5 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
9 Sept 36.9 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Sept 36.5 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Sept 36.2 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Sept 35.5 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept 36.1 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
14 Sept 32.7 °C 49 % 26 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Sept after 34.8 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Sept after 35.3 °C 37 % 21 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2016
After · 21 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 · 217Every 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 Cláudia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2016 and 14 September 2016: 5 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 3,815 hectares (38.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cláudia (3,837 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 40 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

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.