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Colniza fire, 30 July 2016 Colniza

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2016, 18:00 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2016 in Colniza, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,676 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1178th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 314 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
4,676ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
30 Jul 2016 – 18 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Jul
2016
Heat detections
457
in a single hotspot: 119 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

30311234578910111213141516171819

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
42km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 27 Aug.

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
    4,705 ha reached on 29 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)
25 Jul 37.0 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jul 36.8 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul 37.6 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jul 37.3 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jul 37.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul 37.4 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jul 37.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Aug 37.3 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Aug 37.7 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Aug 37.6 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Aug 38.1 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Aug 38.9 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug 36.4 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 36.0 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug 39.3 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 38.6 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Aug 38.4 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug 37.0 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Aug 37.5 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug 36.9 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Aug 35.6 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Aug 35.9 °C 39 % 28 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 21
16 Aug 37.1 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Aug 36.7 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
18 Aug 38.0 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Aug after 37.8 °C 34 % 26 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 18
20 Aug after 34.7 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
21 Aug after 28.6 °C 57 % 42 km/h 10.5 mm Very low 5
22 Aug after 30.9 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
23 Aug after 34.5 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Aug after 36.2 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Aug after 35.7 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Aug after 34.5 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Aug after 30.3 °C 58 % 25 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jul 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 · 457Every 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 30 July 2016 and 18 August 2016: 20 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 4,676 hectares (46.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Colniza (4,705 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 42 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.