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Almas fire, October 2020 Almas

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2020, 04:14 UTC

The fire started on 3 October 2020 in Almas, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,848 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 870th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 679 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
3,848ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
3 Oct 2020 – 10 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Oct
2020
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
709MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Oct10 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

345678910

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
40km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 24 Oct.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,554 ha in 2016, 23 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Almas 6,499 inhabitants where it started
    3,867 ha reached on 3 Oct
    1.0 %

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 Oct 39.0 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Oct 39.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Oct 38.8 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Oct 39.2 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Oct 40.0 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Oct 39.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Oct 38.6 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Oct 33.7 °C 40 % 40 km/h 10.1 mm Low 8
11 Oct after 30.5 °C 54 % 26 km/h 2.2 mm Low 6
12 Oct after 31.6 °C 50 % 35 km/h 5.7 mm Very low 4
13 Oct after 34.5 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Oct after 35.8 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Oct after 36.7 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Oct after 39.0 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Oct after 36.2 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Oct after 37.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Oct after 34.1 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Oct after 37.9 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Oct after 38.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Oct after 37.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Oct after 31.3 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
24 Oct after 30.4 °C 53 % 32 km/h 2.7 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Sept 2020
After · 17 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 · 96Every 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 3 October 2020 and 10 October 2020: 8 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 3,848 hectares (38.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Almas (3,867 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 40 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.