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Lábrea fire, 29 July 2016 Lábrea

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2016, 17:48 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2016 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,748 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 180th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 301 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
4,748ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
29 Jul 2016 – 9 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Jul
2016
Heat detections
356
in a single hotspot: 164 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

293031123456789

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 16 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
    4,791 ha reached on 29 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)
22 Jul 32.7 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Jul 34.3 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Jul 34.4 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Jul 35.5 °C 29 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Jul 34.0 °C 40 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jul 34.4 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Jul 34.7 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jul 34.6 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jul 34.6 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Jul 35.3 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Aug 35.5 °C 30 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Aug 35.5 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug 35.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Aug 36.2 °C 28 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Aug 35.6 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Aug 35.4 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug 34.6 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Aug 34.9 °C 48 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
9 Aug 32.7 °C 55 % 31 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 12
10 Aug after 31.5 °C 50 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
11 Aug after 31.0 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Aug after 33.3 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Aug after 34.2 °C 43 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Aug after 35.3 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Aug after 35.0 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Aug after 34.6 °C 48 % 25 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jul 2016
After · 16 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 · 356Every 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 29 July 2016 and 9 August 2016: 12 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 4,748 hectares (47.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (4,791 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.