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Almas fire, 27 September 2020 Almas

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2020, 16:43 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2020 in Almas, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,612 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 389th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 361 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
6,612ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
27 Sept 2020 – 5 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Sept
2020
Heat detections
251
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept5 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2728293012345

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
48km/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: 10.3 mm on 10 Oct.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,808 ha in 2016, 63 ha in 2017, 445 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Almas 6,499 inhabitants where it started
    6,653 ha reached on 24 Sept
    1.6 %

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)
24 Sept 35.6 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
25 Sept 34.7 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Sept 35.0 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Sept 37.4 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Sept 38.1 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Sept 38.5 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Sept 38.8 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Oct 37.6 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Oct 38.2 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Oct 38.8 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Oct 39.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Oct 38.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Oct after 38.6 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Oct after 39.5 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Oct after 39.4 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Oct after 38.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Oct after 33.6 °C 42 % 34 km/h 10.3 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Sept 2020
After · 12 Oct 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 · 251Every 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 27 September 2020 and 5 October 2020: 9 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 6,612 hectares (66.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Almas (6,653 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 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

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.