How long did the Lábrea fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 July 2017 and 10 August 2017: 16 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 4,835 hectares (48.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Lábrea (4,879 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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.

BR · Brazil · 2017-07-26 → 2017-08-10

Lábrea fire, July 2017 Lábrea

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2017, 05:49 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2017 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,835 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 173th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 495 in Brazil in 2017, of 994.

Burnt area: 4,835ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 26 Jul 2017 – 10 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 26 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 362; in a single hotspot: 481 MW
Danger at start: 26; High · FWI index
Energy released: 7.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Aug 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

26272829303112345678910

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

35km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 20 Aug.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,091 ha in 2016.

1,781 ha Lábrea fire, July 2016 3,034 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Lábrea 45,448 inhabitants where it started

4,879 ha reached on 26 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)
19 Jul	27.0 °C	34 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Jul	29.7 °C	34 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
21 Jul	32.0 °C	37 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Jul	33.4 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
23 Jul	35.7 °C	31 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Jul	35.1 °C	35 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
25 Jul	36.3 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Jul	36.7 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
27 Jul	35.6 °C	19 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Jul	34.7 °C	26 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
29 Jul	34.7 °C	27 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
30 Jul	34.5 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
31 Jul	35.0 °C	24 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Aug	35.2 °C	29 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Aug	36.0 °C	33 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Aug	33.3 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
4 Aug	34.2 °C	35 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Aug	35.2 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Aug	36.0 °C	31 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
7 Aug	37.2 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Aug	37.3 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Aug	37.3 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
10 Aug	31.9 °C	57 %	29 km/h	11.6 mm	Very low 4
11 Aug after	29.4 °C	65 %	31 km/h	4.7 mm	Very low 2
12 Aug after	33.8 °C	50 %	30 km/h	0.8 mm	Low 8
13 Aug after	34.1 °C	47 %	29 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 14
14 Aug after	32.1 °C	63 %	28 km/h	8.6 mm	Very low 1
15 Aug after	33.8 °C	52 %	22 km/h	1.0 mm	Very low 4
16 Aug after	34.3 °C	49 %	20 km/h	2.1 mm	Very low 4
17 Aug after	29.9 °C	69 %	32 km/h	17.8 mm	Very low 0
18 Aug after	30.2 °C	60 %	29 km/h	0.4 mm	Very low 2
19 Aug after	33.2 °C	52 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
20 Aug after	33.1 °C	47 %	22 km/h	1.4 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Jul 2017

After · 17 Aug 2017

Before After

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 · 362Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lábrea fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 July 2017 and 10 August 2017: 16 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 4,835 hectares (48.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Lábrea (4,879 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned