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Ibotirama fire, September 2016 Ibotirama

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2016, 03:50 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2016 in Ibotirama, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,513 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 53 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
13,513ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
9 Sept 2016 – 25 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Sept
2016
Heat detections
654
in a single hotspot: 226 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
8.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept25 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

9101112131415161718192021222425

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
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.8 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. Ibotirama 26,309 inhabitants where it started
    13,595 ha reached on 9 Sept
    7.8 %

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 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Sept 34.1 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept 34.9 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Sept 35.9 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 36.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept 37.2 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept 38.0 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept 38.9 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Sept 36.8 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Sept 36.4 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Sept 37.2 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Sept 37.8 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Sept 38.7 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Sept 35.8 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Sept 33.4 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept 35.2 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Sept 35.3 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Sept after 26.2 °C 68 % 24 km/h 7.8 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Sept 2016
After · 2 Oct 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 · 654Every 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 Ibotirama fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2016 and 25 September 2016: 17 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 13,513 hectares (135.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ibotirama (13,595 ha, 7.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.