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Rorainópolis fire, 14 January 2016 Rorainópolis

Out · last detection 30 Jan 2016, 17:51 UTC

The fire started on 14 January 2016 in Rorainópolis, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,066 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Roraima since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 94 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
10,066ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
14 Jan 2016 – 30 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Jan
2016
Heat detections
394
in a single hotspot: 172 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
3.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jan30 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819202122232425262830

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
43km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 1 Feb.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Rorainópolis 20,957 inhabitants where it started
    10,133 ha reached on 14 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
14 Jan 36.6 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
15 Jan 37.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Jan 37.1 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Jan 37.7 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Jan 37.0 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Jan 35.9 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Jan 34.7 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jan 34.6 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
22 Jan 35.0 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Jan 36.0 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
24 Jan 37.5 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Jan 37.6 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Jan 35.6 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Jan 34.5 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Jan 37.0 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Jan 36.2 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jan 38.0 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Jan after 32.4 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 21
1 Feb after 32.5 °C 52 % 35 km/h 3.0 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jan 2016
After · 6 Feb 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 · 394Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Rorainópolis fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 January 2016 and 30 January 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 10,066 hectares (100.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rorainópolis (10,133 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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.