How long did the Gran Chimu fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 November 2016 and 24 November 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 2,580 hectares (25.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gran Chimu (2,394 ha, 1.8 %); Cajamarca (203 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 15.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Peru (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

PE · Peru · 2016-11-17 → 2016-11-24

Gran Chimu fire, 17 November 2016 Gran Chimu, Cajamarca

Out · last detection 23 Nov 2016, 07:05 UTC

The fire started on 17 November 2016 in Gran Chimu, Peru, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,580 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in La Libertad since 2016 (of 12 with a page). Number 8 in Peru in 2016, of 58.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cajamarca · 2022 Gran Chimu · 2016 Cajamarca · 2018 Gran Chimu · 2024

Burnt area: 2,580ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 17 Nov 2016 – 24 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; provinces
Started on: 17 Nov; 2016
Heat detections: 102; in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start: 13; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 200MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Nov24 Nov

Play back 23 Nov 2016

How it evolved, day by day

17 Nov 18 Nov 19 Nov 20 Nov 21 Nov 23 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

16°high

56km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 30 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (26 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Gran Chimu 8,206 inhabitants where it started

2,394 ha reached on 17 Nov

1.8 %
Cajamarca 4,399 inhabitants

203 ha reached on 21 Nov

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 Nov	14.9 °C	13 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
18 Nov	14.6 °C	12 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
19 Nov	15.9 °C	7 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
20 Nov	14.3 °C	9 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
21 Nov	14.4 °C	10 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
22 Nov	14.8 °C	9 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
23 Nov	14.7 °C	14 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
24 Nov	14.8 °C	18 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
25 Nov after	14.1 °C	17 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
26 Nov after	14.6 °C	15 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
27 Nov after	13.8 °C	20 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
28 Nov after	14.7 °C	26 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
29 Nov after	15.1 °C	35 %	53 km/h	0.8 mm	Low 9
30 Nov after	15.4 °C	33 %	54 km/h	2.6 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Nov 2016

After · 1 Dec 2016

Before After

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 · 102Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Peru ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gran Chimu fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 November 2016 and 24 November 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 2,580 hectares (25.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gran Chimu (2,394 ha, 1.8 %); Cajamarca (203 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 15.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Peru (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: 116 · 105

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 116 · 105.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 102 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned