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Pilão Arcado fire, August 2016 Pilão Arcado

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2016, 03:49 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2016 in Pilão Arcado, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,542 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 467 with a page). Number 23 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pilão Arcado · 2023Pilão Arcado · 2020Pilão Arcado · 2023Campo Alegre de Lourdes · 2021

Burnt area
20,542ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
23 Aug 2016 – 25 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Aug
2016
Heat detections
1,360
in a single hotspot: 263 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
665MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug25 Sept
25 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

23 Aug 2016 · 453 MW · 14 24 Aug 2016 · 865 MW · 48 25 Aug 2016 · 21 MW · 3 26 Aug 2016 · 1,174 MW · 42 27 Aug 2016 · 22 MW · 14 28 Aug 2016 · 243 MW · 30 29 Aug 2016 · 1,753 MW · 61 30 Aug 2016 · 3,051 MW · 144 31 Aug 2016 · 2,135 MW · 217 1 Sept 2016 · 1,692 MW · 129 2 Sept 2016 · 786 MW · 89 3 Sept 2016 · 959 MW · 65 4 Sept 2016 · 221 MW · 26 5 Sept 2016 · 264 MW · 21 6 Sept 2016 · 3,637 MW · 68 7 Sept 2016 · 1,756 MW · 128 8 Sept 2016 · 965 MW · 43 9 Sept 2016 · 337 MW · 52 10 Sept 2016 · 240 MW · 36 11 Sept 2016 · 54 MW · 13 12 Sept 2016 · 9 MW · 4 13 Sept 2016 · 282 MW · 28 14 Sept 2016 · 278 MW · 28 15 Sept 2016 · 389 MW · 28 16 Sept 2016 · 305 MW · 19 17 Sept 2016 · 4 MW · 2 18 Sept 2016 · 1 MW · 1 19 Sept 2016 · 28 MW · 1 20 Sept 2016 · 8 MW · 1 21 Sept 2016 · 4 MW · 1 22 Sept 2016 · 10 MW · 1 23 Sept 2016 · 2 MW · 1 25 Sept 2016 · 3 MW · 2
23 Aug 28 Aug 2 Sept 6 Sept 7 Sept 12 Sept 17 Sept 22 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

38°high
56km/h · peak gust
19%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 26 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 13% of the area of London (205 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

  1. Pilão Arcado 35,357 inhabitants where it started
    20,649 ha reached on 23 Aug
    1.8 %

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 area0.22 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.22 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (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)
23 Aug 35.5 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Aug 33.3 °C 31 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Aug 30.9 °C 43 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
26 Aug 33.0 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Aug 33.8 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug 32.1 °C 28 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug 33.0 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Aug 35.0 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug 34.8 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept 34.5 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Sept 32.9 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept 33.4 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Sept 33.2 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Sept 33.5 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Sept 34.2 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept 35.0 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept 34.4 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept 35.1 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Sept 33.5 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept 34.9 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Sept 34.7 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 34.8 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept 35.1 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Sept 36.7 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept 37.7 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Sept 35.1 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Sept 35.5 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Sept 36.1 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Sept 37.5 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Sept 38.5 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Sept 35.6 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 47
23 Sept 34.3 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Sept 35.7 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Sept 35.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Sept after 33.2 °C 36 % 37 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2016
After · 2 Oct 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 · 1,360Every 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 Pilão Arcado fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 August 2016 to 25 September 2016 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2016 to 18 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 20,542 hectares (205.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pilão Arcado (20,649 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 18 September 2016 → 25 September 2016.

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?

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 23 August 2016 to 18 September 2016. 1,360 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.