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Lábrea fire, 18 July 2016 Lábrea

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2016, 18:00 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2016 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,633 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 189th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 321 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
4,633ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
18 Jul 2016 – 18 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2016
Heat detections
750
in a single hotspot: 476 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
8.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122232425262728293031123456789111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
41km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 28 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Lábrea 45,448 inhabitants where it started
    4,668 ha reached on 11 Jul
    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)
11 Jul 34.0 °C 52 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 20
12 Jul 32.0 °C 63 % 25 km/h 1.9 mm Low 6
13 Jul 30.6 °C 67 % 22 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 3
14 Jul 32.4 °C 56 % 25 km/h 0.4 mm Low 8
15 Jul 32.7 °C 52 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
16 Jul 34.0 °C 45 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
17 Jul 31.4 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Jul 31.2 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
19 Jul 32.4 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
20 Jul 32.3 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Jul 33.2 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Jul 34.0 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Jul 34.5 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Jul 35.1 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Jul 35.4 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Jul 33.7 °C 46 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
27 Jul 34.9 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Jul 35.5 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jul 35.6 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jul 35.7 °C 27 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul 36.2 °C 29 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Aug 36.3 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Aug 36.3 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Aug 36.7 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug 36.2 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Aug 36.6 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Aug 35.9 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
7 Aug 35.2 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
8 Aug 35.1 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm High 23
9 Aug 37.3 °C 35 % 30 km/h 1.6 mm High 25
10 Aug 31.5 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
11 Aug 32.0 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Aug 35.8 °C 37 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
13 Aug 36.6 °C 36 % 17 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
14 Aug 36.6 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Aug 36.9 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
16 Aug 35.9 °C 42 % 30 km/h 1.2 mm High 22
17 Aug 35.8 °C 45 % 28 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 15
18 Aug 34.6 °C 51 % 27 km/h 7.9 mm Very low 4
19 Aug after 33.5 °C 52 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm Low 10
20 Aug after 33.0 °C 55 % 25 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 4
21 Aug after 32.3 °C 70 % 41 km/h 20.1 mm Very low 1
22 Aug after 28.5 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
23 Aug after 32.7 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
24 Aug after 34.5 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
25 Aug after 35.8 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
26 Aug after 35.8 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 19
27 Aug after 35.1 °C 46 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
28 Aug after 34.2 °C 44 % 37 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2016
After · 25 Aug 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 · 750Every 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 Lábrea fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2016 and 18 August 2016: 32 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 4,633 hectares (46.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (4,668 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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.