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Pium fire, 9 August 2016 Pium

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2016, 17:15 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2016 in Pium, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,958 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 135th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 58 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
12,958ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
9 Aug 2016 – 15 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Aug
2016
Heat detections
423
in a single hotspot: 124 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

910111213141516

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
37km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Pium 7,128 inhabitants where it started
    13,055 ha reached on 9 Aug
    1.3 %

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)
9 Aug 37.2 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Aug 38.2 °C 17 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 38.8 °C 15 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 38.3 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug 37.3 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug 36.3 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug 36.6 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Aug after 37.4 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug after 37.5 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug after 38.9 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Aug after 38.2 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Aug after 36.8 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug after 38.4 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Aug after 36.1 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Aug after 36.9 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Aug after 37.2 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Aug after 36.4 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2016
After · 22 Aug 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 · 423Every 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 Pium fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 August 2016 and 15 August 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 12,958 hectares (129.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pium (13,055 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.