How long did the Mucajaí fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 February 2016 and 8 March 2016: 9 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 11,838 hectares (118.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mucajaí (11,918 ha, 1.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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.

BR · Brazil · 2016-02-29 → 2016-03-08

Mucajaí fire, February 2016 Mucajaí

Out · last detection 8 Mar 2016, 17:38 UTC

The fire started on 29 February 2016 in Mucajaí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,838 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Roraima since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 75 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mucajaí · 2024 Mucajaí · 2016 Mucajaí · 2019 Mucajaí · 2016

Burnt area: 11,838ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 29 Feb 2016 – 8 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 29 Feb; 2016
Heat detections: 409; in a single hotspot: 156 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 448MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 8 Mar 2016

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Feb8 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1 Mar 3 Mar 4 Mar 5 Mar 7 Mar

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

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.2 mm on 13 Mar.

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 7.5% of the area of London (118 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

Mucajaí 18,095 inhabitants where it started

11,918 ha reached on 27 Feb

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)
27 Feb	34.0 °C	39 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
28 Feb	32.3 °C	55 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
29 Feb	33.1 °C	49 %	45 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 13
1 Mar	34.8 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
2 Mar	34.4 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
3 Mar	35.2 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
4 Mar	36.7 °C	27 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Mar	35.9 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
6 Mar	36.0 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Mar	34.8 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
8 Mar	35.4 °C	38 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
9 Mar after	34.4 °C	39 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
10 Mar after	35.9 °C	37 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
11 Mar after	35.7 °C	36 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
12 Mar after	33.8 °C	40 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
13 Mar after	34.5 °C	47 %	36 km/h	11.2 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Feb 2016

After · 15 Mar 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 · 409Every 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 Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mucajaí fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 February 2016 and 8 March 2016: 9 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 11,838 hectares (118.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mucajaí (11,918 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

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 193.

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. 409 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