How long did the Nova Nazaré fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2016 to 18 September 2016 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2016 to 15 September 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,210 hectares (82.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nova Nazaré (8,256 ha, 2.0 %); Nova Xavantina (13 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2016-08-26 → 2016-09-18

Nova Nazaré fire, 26 August 2016 Nova Nazaré, Nova Xavantina

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2016, 16:55 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2016 in Nova Nazaré, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,210 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 592th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 133 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nova Nazaré · 2018 Nova Nazaré · 2022 Nova Nazaré · 2019 Nova Nazaré · 2024

Burnt area: 8,210ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 24days; 26 Aug 2016 – 18 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 26 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 354; in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 162MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug18 Sept

Play back 18 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

26 Aug 29 Aug 4 Sept 7 Sept 10 Sept 11 Sept 13 Sept 16 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

46km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 24 Sept.

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 5.2% of the area of London (82 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

Nova Nazaré where it started

8,256 ha reached on 26 Aug

2.0 %
Nova Xavantina 24,345 inhabitants

13 ha reached on 13 Sept

0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
26 Aug	36.7 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
27 Aug	37.7 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
28 Aug	37.7 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 46
29 Aug	33.9 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Aug	36.0 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
31 Aug	35.7 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Sept	37.8 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Sept	38.3 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Sept	36.0 °C	28 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
4 Sept	34.8 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
5 Sept	38.0 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
6 Sept	36.4 °C	29 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
7 Sept	38.3 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
8 Sept	38.3 °C	22 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Sept	39.5 °C	19 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
10 Sept	39.5 °C	16 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
11 Sept	38.9 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
12 Sept	39.5 °C	12 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
13 Sept	38.8 °C	21 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
14 Sept	39.9 °C	22 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
15 Sept	38.5 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
16 Sept	39.6 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
17 Sept	39.2 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
18 Sept	38.4 °C	27 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 39
19 Sept after	37.4 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 46
20 Sept after	37.9 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 47
21 Sept after	38.1 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
22 Sept after	39.1 °C	22 %	33 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 45
23 Sept after	33.3 °C	51 %	26 km/h	0.8 mm	High 22
24 Sept after	33.7 °C	47 %	19 km/h	5.2 mm	Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Aug 2016

After · 25 Sept 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 · 354Every 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 Nova Nazaré fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2016 to 18 September 2016 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 September 2016 to 15 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,210 hectares (82.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nova Nazaré (8,256 ha, 2.0 %); Nova Xavantina (13 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 September 2016 to 15 September 2016. 354 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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