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Pedro Afonso fire, September 2016 Pedro Afonso

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2016, 16:00 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2016 in Pedro Afonso, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,804 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 887th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 439 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
3,804ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
1 Sept 2016 – 5 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Sept
2016
Heat detections
85
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
727MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept5 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12345

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
45km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 17 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. Pedro Afonso 14,055 inhabitants where it started
    3,828 ha reached on 1 Sept
    1.9 %

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)
1 Sept 39.3 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept 38.4 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Sept 36.5 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Sept 36.5 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Sept 37.6 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Sept after 37.8 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Sept after 38.9 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Sept after 37.6 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Sept after 36.3 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept after 38.0 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Sept after 38.5 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Sept after 38.8 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Sept after 38.5 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept after 37.8 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept after 39.9 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Sept after 37.4 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Sept after 35.9 °C 38 % 38 km/h 1.7 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2016
After · 12 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 · 85Every 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 Pedro Afonso fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2016 and 5 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 3,804 hectares (38.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pedro Afonso (3,828 ha, 1.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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

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.