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São Braz do Piauí fire, August 2016 São Raimundo Nonato, São Braz do Piauí

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2016, 16:12 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2016 in São Braz do Piauí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,558 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 113th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 805 with a page). Number 85 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Jurema · 2025São Raimundo Nonato · 2021Jurema · 2022São Braz do Piauí · 2016

Burnt area
10,558ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
17 Aug 2016 – 16 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
17 Aug
2016
Heat detections
610
in a single hotspot: 180 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
240MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug16 Sept
15 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

17 Aug 2016 · 178 MW · 16 18 Aug 2016 · 63 MW · 10 19 Aug 2016 · 63 MW · 7 20 Aug 2016 · 38 MW · 6 21 Aug 2016 · 22 MW · 5 22 Aug 2016 · 64 MW · 9 23 Aug 2016 · 222 MW · 21 24 Aug 2016 · 59 MW · 13 26 Aug 2016 · 17 MW · 4 27 Aug 2016 · 13 MW · 5 28 Aug 2016 · 40 MW · 11 29 Aug 2016 · 390 MW · 33 30 Aug 2016 · 894 MW · 19 31 Aug 2016 · 548 MW · 43 1 Sept 2016 · 1,330 MW · 48 2 Sept 2016 · 329 MW · 53 3 Sept 2016 · 230 MW · 40 4 Sept 2016 · 356 MW · 38 5 Sept 2016 · 418 MW · 27 6 Sept 2016 · 282 MW · 31 7 Sept 2016 · 509 MW · 35 8 Sept 2016 · 102 MW · 25 9 Sept 2016 · 280 MW · 30 10 Sept 2016 · 186 MW · 31 11 Sept 2016 · 32 MW · 15 12 Sept 2016 · 10 MW · 7 13 Sept 2016 · 70 MW · 12 14 Sept 2016 · 186 MW · 15 15 Sept 2016 · 25 MW · 1
17 Aug 22 Aug 28 Aug 1 Sept 2 Sept 7 Sept 12 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
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 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 6.7% of the area of London (106 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. São Raimundo Nonato 38,934 inhabitants
    8,635 ha reached on 22 Aug
    3.6 %
  2. São Braz do Piauí 4,358 inhabitants where it started
    1,986 ha reached on 17 Aug
    3.0 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
17 Aug 37.6 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Aug 35.8 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Aug 33.2 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug 33.7 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug 35.0 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug 38.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug 34.6 °C 23 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Aug 32.8 °C 30 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Aug 30.9 °C 37 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Aug 32.7 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Aug 33.8 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Aug 31.9 °C 24 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug 33.0 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Aug 34.6 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Aug 32.8 °C 34 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Sept 33.9 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept 32.7 °C 28 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept 32.5 °C 28 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Sept 31.0 °C 32 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Sept 33.2 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 33.7 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Sept 34.0 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Sept 34.3 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Sept 34.4 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Sept 33.4 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Sept 34.2 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Sept 34.7 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Sept 34.3 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Sept 33.9 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Sept 35.9 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept 36.4 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Sept after 34.7 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Sept after 34.4 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Sept after 35.0 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept after 36.4 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Sept after 37.6 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Sept after 34.9 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 45
23 Sept after 34.5 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Sept after 35.1 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Sept after 35.7 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Sept after 33.4 °C 34 % 36 km/h 1.3 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2016
After · 23 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 · 610Every 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 São Braz do Piauí fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 August 2016 to 16 September 2016 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 August 2016 to 15 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,558 hectares (105.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: São Raimundo Nonato (8,635 ha, 3.6 %); São Braz do Piauí (1,986 ha, 3.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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: 15 September 2016 → 16 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 17 August 2016 to 15 September 2016. 610 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.