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Almas fire, 8 August 2020 Almas

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2020, 03:43 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2020 in Almas, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,244 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 555th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 485 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
5,244ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
8 Aug 2020 – 14 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Aug
2020
Heat detections
149
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
109MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

14 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 2020 · 363 MW · 33 9 Aug 2020 · 75 MW · 25 10 Aug 2020 · 103 MW · 21 11 Aug 2020 · 110 MW · 23 12 Aug 2020 · 54 MW · 25 13 Aug 2020 · 51 MW · 21 14 Aug 2020 · 4 MW · 1
8 Aug 9 Aug 10 Aug 11 Aug 12 Aug 13 Aug 14 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
42km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,315 ha in 2016, 42 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Almas 6,499 inhabitants where it started
    5,275 ha reached on 8 Aug
    1.3 %

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)
8 Aug 28.7 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Aug 29.6 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug 30.2 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug 31.2 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug 31.2 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Aug 31.5 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug 31.4 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug after 32.3 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Aug after 33.3 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug after 33.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Aug after 33.2 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Aug after 32.4 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug after 33.8 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug after 34.1 °C 20 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug after 34.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug after 32.9 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Aug after 30.6 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2020
After · 21 Aug 2020

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 · 149Every 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 Almas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 August 2020 and 14 August 2020: 7 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 5,244 hectares (52.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Almas (5,275 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.