Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Unaí fire, 7 September 2016 Unaí

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2016, 17:38 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2016 in Unaí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,218 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 163 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
7,218ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
7 Sept 2016 – 20 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Sept
2016
Heat detections
217
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

789101112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 23 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. Unaí 86,619 inhabitants where it started
    7,259 ha reached on 3 Sept
    0.8 %

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)
3 Sept 29.3 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Sept 28.4 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Sept 30.3 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Sept 30.7 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept 32.5 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept 32.1 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Sept 32.2 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept 30.5 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Sept 30.4 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 31.3 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Sept 32.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept 34.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Sept 35.4 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept 35.6 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Sept 33.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Sept 33.8 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept 35.3 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 40
20 Sept 33.7 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 44
21 Sept after 33.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 19
22 Sept after 32.6 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm High 31
23 Sept after 31.5 °C 38 % 35 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2016
After · 27 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 · 217Every 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 Unaí fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 September 2016 and 20 September 2016: 14 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 7,218 hectares (72.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Unaí (7,259 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.