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Lábrea fire, July 2018 Lábrea

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2018, 18:06 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2018 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,810 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 280th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 179 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
3,810ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
18 Jul 2018 – 29 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2018
Heat detections
248
in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul29 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
41km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 8 Aug.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,816 ha in 2016, 4,343 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,699 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lábrea 45,448 inhabitants where it started
    3,842 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 28.7 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Jul 30.2 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Jul 32.6 °C 42 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
14 Jul 33.2 °C 50 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
15 Jul 33.8 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm High 22
16 Jul 32.2 °C 52 % 19 km/h 2.2 mm Low 8
17 Jul 33.7 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Jul 33.4 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
19 Jul 33.5 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18
20 Jul 34.3 °C 45 % 19 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
21 Jul 29.8 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
22 Jul 31.0 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jul 33.6 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Jul 32.0 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jul 30.8 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Jul 31.7 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jul 32.8 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Jul 34.2 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Jul 34.8 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Jul after 32.9 °C 50 % 21 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 17
31 Jul after 33.2 °C 54 % 26 km/h 6.2 mm Very low 4
1 Aug after 29.7 °C 68 % 20 km/h 10.5 mm Very low 0
2 Aug after 30.6 °C 59 % 19 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 3
3 Aug after 32.7 °C 54 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm Low 8
4 Aug after 34.6 °C 46 % 24 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 5
5 Aug after 23.2 °C 88 % 25 km/h 7.1 mm Very low 0
6 Aug after 26.8 °C 62 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
7 Aug after 31.5 °C 52 % 19 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 5
8 Aug after 33.3 °C 51 % 24 km/h 2.3 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2018
After · 5 Aug 2018

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 · 248Every 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 2018 and 29 July 2018: 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 3,810 hectares (38.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (3,842 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.

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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.