How long did the Waimate District fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 March 2016 and 14 March 2016: 1 day 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 409 hectares (4.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Waimate District (409 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 22.7 °C, humidity dropped to 66 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class Low.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of New Zealand (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

NZ · New Zealand · 2016-03-14 → 2016-03-14

Waimate District fire, March 2016 Waimate District

Out · last detection 14 Mar 2016, 03:39 UTC

The fire started on 14 March 2016 in Waimate District, New Zealand, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 409 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Canterbury Region since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 7 in New Zealand in 2016, of 17.

Burnt area: 409ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 1day; 14 Mar 2016 – 14 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 14 Mar; 2016
Heat detections: 12; in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start: 6; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 216MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Mar14 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

23°high

30km/h · peak gust

66%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 20.1 mm on 15 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Waimate District where it started

409 ha reached on 14 Mar

0.1 %

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 Mar	22.7 °C	66 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
15 Mar after	16.1 °C	89 %	47 km/h	20.1 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Mar 2016

After · 21 Mar 2016

Before After

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 · 12Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in New Zealand ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Waimate District fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 March 2016 and 14 March 2016: 1 day 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 409 hectares (4.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Waimate District (409 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 22.7 °C, humidity dropped to 66 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class Low.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of New Zealand (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: 111

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 111.

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 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.

Where it burned