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Cotegipe fire, September 2016 Cotegipe

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2016, 16:37 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2016 in Cotegipe, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,211 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 301th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 373 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
4,211ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
9 Sept 2016 – 19 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Sept
2016
Heat detections
164
in a single hotspot: 142 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

910111213141516171819

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
38km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.7 mm on 26 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. Cotegipe 13,063 inhabitants where it started
    4,234 ha reached on 9 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)
9 Sept 36.6 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Sept 34.2 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Sept 34.9 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Sept 35.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 36.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept 37.1 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Sept 37.5 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Sept 39.2 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Sept 37.2 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Sept 36.6 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Sept 37.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 38.2 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Sept after 38.6 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Sept after 36.2 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Sept after 34.9 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 39
24 Sept after 35.5 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Sept after 34.9 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
26 Sept after 27.3 °C 61 % 28 km/h 5.7 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Sept 2016
After · 26 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 · 164Every 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 Cotegipe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2016 and 19 September 2016: 11 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 4,211 hectares (42.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cotegipe (4,234 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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
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.