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Oiapoque fire, October 2016 Oiapoque

Out · last detection 4 Nov 2016, 17:19 UTC

The fire started on 29 October 2016 in Oiapoque, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,020 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Amapá since 2016 (of 41 with a page). Number 641 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
3,020ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Oct 2016 – 4 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Oct
2016
Heat detections
81
in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Energy released
618MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Oct4 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
46km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 5 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Oiapoque 27,482 inhabitants where it started
    3,041 ha reached on 29 Oct
    0.1 %

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)
22 Oct 32.8 °C 60 % 45 km/h 2.1 mm Low 6
23 Oct 32.6 °C 58 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
24 Oct 33.4 °C 56 % 40 km/h 0.9 mm Low 11
25 Oct 32.8 °C 54 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
26 Oct 33.9 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
27 Oct 33.4 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
28 Oct 33.3 °C 52 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
29 Oct 33.1 °C 53 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
30 Oct 32.4 °C 57 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
31 Oct 32.4 °C 51 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
1 Nov 32.2 °C 54 % 42 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 19
2 Nov 33.2 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
3 Nov 32.0 °C 64 % 42 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 4
4 Nov 31.6 °C 72 % 46 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 3
5 Nov after 33.2 °C 64 % 41 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Oct 2016
After · 11 Nov 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 · 81Every 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 Oiapoque fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 October 2016 and 4 November 2016: 7 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 3,020 hectares (30.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Oiapoque (3,041 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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.