Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Ribeirão Cascalheira fire, 5 August 2016 Ribeirão Cascalheira

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2016, 17:02 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2016 in Ribeirão Cascalheira, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,401 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 118th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 13 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
27,401ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
5 Aug 2016 – 21 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Aug
2016
Heat detections
920
in a single hotspot: 190 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
10.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug21 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516171819202122

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
47km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Ribeirão Cascalheira 10,089 inhabitants where it started
    27,602 ha reached on 5 Aug
    2.4 %

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)
5 Aug 35.0 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Aug 34.7 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Aug 35.3 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug 36.5 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Aug 36.9 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Aug 36.0 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Aug 35.8 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Aug 36.6 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug 37.6 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Aug 37.0 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug 36.8 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug 36.9 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Aug 36.7 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug 37.0 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug 38.1 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug 36.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Aug 34.8 °C 39 % 47 km/h 1.4 mm High 29
22 Aug after 29.9 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug after 34.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Aug after 36.7 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug after 35.3 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 44
26 Aug after 36.0 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Aug after 36.9 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Aug after 37.0 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug after 34.3 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug after 35.9 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Aug after 35.1 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
1 Sept after 37.0 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept after 37.2 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2016
After · 28 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 · 920Every 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 Ribeirão Cascalheira fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2016 and 21 August 2016: 17 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 27,401 hectares (274.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ribeirão Cascalheira (27,602 ha, 2.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.