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Cotriguaçu fire, July 2016 Cotriguaçu

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2016, 17:03 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2016 in Cotriguaçu, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,027 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1976th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 638 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
3,027ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
28 Jul 2016 – 6 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Jul
2016
Heat detections
173
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

28293031123456

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 47 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.8 mm on 21 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. Cotriguaçu 11,011 inhabitants where it started
    3,047 ha reached on 28 Jul
    0.3 %

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)
28 Jul 37.0 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jul 36.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Jul 37.0 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Jul 36.9 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Aug 36.6 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Aug 37.3 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Aug 37.0 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Aug 37.6 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Aug 38.6 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Aug 36.2 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Aug after 35.6 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug after 38.9 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Aug after 38.6 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Aug after 38.1 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug after 37.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug after 37.2 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Aug after 36.6 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug after 35.4 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug after 35.1 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.7 mm High 28
16 Aug after 36.4 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
17 Aug after 35.9 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Aug after 37.6 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Aug after 36.9 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug after 34.8 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug after 27.8 °C 58 % 50 km/h 11.8 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2016
After · 13 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 · 173Every 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 Cotriguaçu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 July 2016 and 6 August 2016: 10 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 3,027 hectares (30.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cotriguaçu (3,047 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.