Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Grajaú fire, 24 July 2016 Grajaú

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2016, 16:07 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2016 in Grajaú, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,502 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 86th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 122 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
8,502ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
24 Jul 2016 – 8 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Jul
2016
Heat detections
400
in a single hotspot: 411 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2425262728293031123456789

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
46km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Grajaú 73,872 inhabitants where it started
    8,558 ha reached on 24 Jul
    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)
24 Jul 34.8 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul 35.3 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jul 34.6 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Jul 34.8 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Jul 34.9 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jul 34.2 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Jul 34.1 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jul 34.2 °C 36 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Aug 34.5 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug 35.4 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Aug 35.5 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug 34.8 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug 35.7 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Aug 36.0 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Aug 36.6 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug 35.0 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Aug after 35.3 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug after 35.7 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Aug after 34.3 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Aug after 34.1 °C 52 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Aug after 34.7 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
14 Aug after 35.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Aug after 35.4 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Aug after 35.1 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Aug after 36.3 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Aug after 36.0 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Aug after 35.2 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
20 Aug after 35.3 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Aug after 36.0 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Aug after 36.8 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug after 33.9 °C 51 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
24 Aug after 36.3 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2016
After · 15 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 · 400Every 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 Grajaú fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 July 2016 and 8 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 8,502 hectares (85.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Grajaú (8,558 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.