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Gaúcha do Norte fire, 28 July 2016 Gaúcha do Norte

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2016, 16:50 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2016 in Gaúcha do Norte, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,685 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 436th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 83 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
10,685ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
28 Jul 2016 – 12 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Jul
2016
Heat detections
502
in a single hotspot: 234 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

28293031123456789101112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 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. Gaúcha do Norte 8,642 inhabitants where it started
    10,734 ha reached on 22 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
22 Jul 33.9 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jul 34.5 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Jul 34.4 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul 33.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Jul 34.0 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul 33.3 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul 33.9 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Jul 34.3 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jul 33.9 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul 32.9 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Aug 33.0 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug 33.0 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Aug 34.0 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug 35.2 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Aug 35.3 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Aug 34.4 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug 35.1 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug 35.9 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Aug 36.2 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug 35.6 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug 36.0 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Aug 35.9 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Aug after 36.8 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 35.9 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Aug after 36.0 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
16 Aug after 36.0 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
17 Aug after 35.4 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Aug after 36.0 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug after 36.6 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug after 35.5 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Aug after 32.3 °C 55 % 48 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2016
After · 19 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 · 502Every 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 Gaúcha do Norte fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 July 2016 and 12 August 2016: 16 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 10,685 hectares (106.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gaúcha do Norte (10,734 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

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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.