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Natividade fire, July 2016 Natividade

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2016, 04:47 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2016 in Natividade, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,775 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 109th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 41 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
14,775ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
25 Jul 2016 – 5 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Jul
2016
Heat detections
547
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul5 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2526272829303112345

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
45km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 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. Natividade 8,754 inhabitants where it started
    14,861 ha reached on 25 Jul
    4.6 %

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)
25 Jul 31.9 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jul 31.9 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jul 31.5 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Jul 31.3 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jul 32.2 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul 30.8 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Jul 30.7 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Aug 30.8 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug 31.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Aug 32.4 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug 32.5 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Aug 31.7 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug after 31.7 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug after 32.9 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug after 33.8 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Aug after 34.4 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug after 35.4 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Aug after 35.9 °C 17 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Aug after 35.3 °C 19 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Aug after 34.9 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug after 34.8 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Aug after 35.6 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jul 2016
After · 12 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 · 547Every 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 Natividade fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 July 2016 and 5 August 2016: 12 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 14,775 hectares (147.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Natividade (14,861 ha, 4.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.