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Paranatinga fire, August 2016 Paranatinga, Gaúcha do Norte

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2016, 17:46 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2016 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,477 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1664th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 505 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
3,477ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
23 Aug 2016 – 25 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
23 Aug
2016
Heat detections
82
in a single hotspot: 110 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

232425

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 30 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    3,389 ha reached on 23 Aug
    0.1 %
  2. Gaúcha do Norte 8,642 inhabitants
    115 ha reached on 25 Aug
    0.0 %

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)
23 Aug 32.0 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Aug 35.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Aug 33.7 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
26 Aug after 34.7 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
27 Aug after 35.3 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Aug after 34.8 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Aug after 30.1 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Aug after 31.0 °C 50 % 31 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2016
After · 1 Sept 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 · 82Every 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 Paranatinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2016 and 25 August 2016: 3 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 3,477 hectares (34.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Paranatinga (3,389 ha, 0.1 %); Gaúcha do Norte (115 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.