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Paranatinga fire, 14 September 2016 Paranatinga, Santo Antônio do Leste

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2016, 17:14 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2016 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,536 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1215th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 336 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
4,536ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
14 Sept 2016 – 18 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
14 Sept
2016
Heat detections
141
in a single hotspot: 193 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

14151617

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
34km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 23 Sept.

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
    4,581 ha reached on 13 Sept
    0.2 %
  2. Santo Antônio do Leste 4,099 inhabitants
    2 ha reached on 14 Sept
    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)
13 Sept 35.6 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept 36.0 °C 37 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Sept 35.3 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Sept 36.6 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Sept 36.9 °C 34 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept 35.8 °C 36 % 26 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 19
19 Sept after 33.4 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
20 Sept after 34.7 °C 40 % 27 km/h 2.8 mm Moderate 14
21 Sept after 34.8 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
22 Sept after 35.8 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
23 Sept after 32.3 °C 53 % 24 km/h 1.6 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2016
After · 25 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 · 141Every 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 14 September 2016 and 18 September 2016: 5 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 4,536 hectares (45.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Paranatinga (4,581 ha, 0.2 %); Santo Antônio do Leste (2 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

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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.