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Colniza fire, 23 July 2016 Colniza

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2016, 17:22 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2016 in Colniza, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,926 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 889th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 208 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
5,926ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
23 Jul 2016 – 5 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2016
Heat detections
191
in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul5 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272829303112345

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
40km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 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. Colniza where it started
    5,954 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.2 %

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)
23 Jul 36.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul 37.5 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jul 37.0 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jul 36.8 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jul 38.7 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jul 38.1 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jul 38.1 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Jul 37.7 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Jul 37.9 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Aug 38.0 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Aug 38.5 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Aug 38.7 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Aug 38.7 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Aug 38.8 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug after 36.5 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Aug after 36.3 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug after 39.5 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Aug after 38.3 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Aug after 39.2 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Aug after 37.9 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug after 37.2 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug after 36.6 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug after 36.1 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Aug after 35.5 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2016
After · 12 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 · 191Every 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 Colniza fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2016 and 5 August 2016: 14 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 5,926 hectares (59.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Colniza (5,954 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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
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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.