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Planaltina fire, 2 September 2016 Planaltina

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2016, 16:48 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2016 in Planaltina, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,231 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 335th largest in Goiás since 2016 (of 548 with a page). Number 372 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
4,231ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
2 Sept 2016 – 13 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Sept
2016
Heat detections
127
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
898MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

234567910111213

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
53km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 21 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. Planaltina 105,031 inhabitants where it started
    4,252 ha reached on 2 Sept
    1.7 %

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)
2 Sept 30.5 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
3 Sept 29.9 °C 29 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept 29.2 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Sept 30.0 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Sept 31.1 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Sept 33.0 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Sept 33.0 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Sept 33.5 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Sept 30.8 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Sept 30.2 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Sept 31.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Sept 32.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept after 34.9 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Sept after 35.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Sept after 34.8 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Sept after 32.9 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 46
18 Sept after 32.6 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 33.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Sept after 33.4 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Sept after 33.2 °C 29 % 38 km/h 1.4 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2016
After · 20 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 · 127Every 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 Planaltina fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 September 2016 and 13 September 2016: 12 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 4,231 hectares (42.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Planaltina (4,252 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.