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Luciara fire, 5 August 2016 Luciara

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2016, 17:40 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2016 in Luciara, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,788 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 553th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 114 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
8,788ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
5 Aug 2016 – 19 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Aug
2016
Heat detections
428
in a single hotspot: 280 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314151617181920

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
42km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 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. Luciara 2,509 inhabitants where it started
    8,837 ha reached on 5 Aug
    2.1 %

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)
5 Aug 36.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Aug 36.2 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug 37.1 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Aug 38.0 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 38.0 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Aug 38.8 °C 14 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Aug 38.9 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Aug 38.6 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Aug 38.9 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Aug 36.8 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Aug 37.8 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug 38.4 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Aug 37.9 °C 25 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug 38.9 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug 38.4 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug after 37.0 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug after 37.9 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Aug after 35.3 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug after 36.9 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Aug after 37.6 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 48
25 Aug after 36.8 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Aug after 37.8 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Aug after 37.2 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Aug after 35.7 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug after 37.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug after 39.0 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug after 38.5 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept after 37.6 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept after 38.5 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2016
After · 26 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 · 428Every 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 Luciara fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2016 and 19 August 2016: 15 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 8,788 hectares (87.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luciara (8,837 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.