Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Corumbá fire, 17 September 2016 Corumbá

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2016, 05:51 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2016 in Corumbá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,225 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 235th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 197 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
6,225ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
17 Sept 2016 – 24 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Sept
2016
Heat detections
183
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

17182021222324

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
33km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 22.3 mm on 3 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Corumbá 96,268 inhabitants where it started
    6,211 ha reached on 17 Sept
    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)
17 Sept 38.4 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Sept 39.2 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Sept 29.3 °C 56 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Sept 31.8 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
21 Sept 35.1 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Sept 35.6 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Sept 37.1 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Sept 33.0 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Sept after 33.8 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Sept after 35.3 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Sept after 36.0 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Sept after 37.6 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Sept after 38.5 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Sept after 37.4 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Oct after 38.1 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Oct after 38.2 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
3 Oct after 32.9 °C 50 % 38 km/h 22.3 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2016
After · 1 Oct 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 · 183Every 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 Corumbá fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2016 and 24 September 2016: 8 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 6,225 hectares (62.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corumbá (6,211 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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.