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Lábrea fire, 11 August 2016 Lábrea

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2016, 05:05 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2016 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,255 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 227th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 367 in Brazil in 2016, of 649.

Burnt area
4,255ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
11 Aug 2016 – 20 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Aug
2016
Heat detections
363
in a single hotspot: 127 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617181920

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
51km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 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
    4,292 ha reached on 11 Aug
    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)
4 Aug 36.7 °C 26 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Aug 36.5 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Aug 36.2 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug 34.8 °C 42 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Aug 36.0 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
9 Aug 33.7 °C 46 % 30 km/h 4.7 mm Low 9
10 Aug 33.0 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 21
11 Aug 32.3 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Aug 34.7 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Aug 35.8 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Aug 36.8 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Aug 36.1 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Aug 35.7 °C 41 % 28 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 20
17 Aug 36.5 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
18 Aug 36.0 °C 41 % 24 km/h 4.1 mm Low 8
19 Aug 35.2 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
20 Aug 34.0 °C 51 % 28 km/h 7.2 mm Very low 4
21 Aug after 32.3 °C 58 % 51 km/h 11.6 mm Very low 3
22 Aug after 28.8 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
23 Aug after 33.1 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
24 Aug after 35.1 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
25 Aug after 36.1 °C 36 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Aug after 36.6 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
27 Aug after 35.2 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
28 Aug after 33.0 °C 51 % 42 km/h 4.0 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2016
After · 27 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 · 363Every 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 11 August 2016 and 20 August 2016: 10 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 4,255 hectares (42.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (4,292 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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
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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.