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Lábrea fire, 23 August 2018 Lábrea

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2018, 18:44 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2018 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,159 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 408th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 265 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
3,159ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
23 Aug 2018 – 13 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Aug
2018
Heat detections
235
in a single hotspot: 234 MW
Danger at start
5
Low · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

232425272829303112456789101213

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
42km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 21 Sept.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,065 ha in 2016, 1,047 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,642 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lábrea 45,448 inhabitants where it started
    3,187 ha reached on 18 Aug
    0.0 %

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)
18 Aug 33.9 °C 45 % 21 km/h 1.4 mm Low 5
19 Aug 33.3 °C 51 % 22 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 1
20 Aug 26.0 °C 80 % 28 km/h 13.1 mm Very low 0
21 Aug 25.0 °C 67 % 31 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 0
22 Aug 30.0 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
23 Aug 32.2 °C 50 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
24 Aug 33.3 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
25 Aug 33.1 °C 51 % 26 km/h 6.1 mm Very low 1
26 Aug 26.8 °C 53 % 41 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 4
27 Aug 32.0 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
28 Aug 33.9 °C 40 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
29 Aug 35.1 °C 42 % 19 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
30 Aug 34.5 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 13
31 Aug 34.2 °C 42 % 28 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 4
1 Sept 36.0 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm Low 10
2 Sept 33.8 °C 44 % 27 km/h 5.1 mm Very low 3
3 Sept 28.8 °C 49 % 41 km/h 1.0 mm Low 6
4 Sept 31.6 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Sept 32.8 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Sept 34.7 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
7 Sept 34.7 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Sept 35.5 °C 35 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Sept 36.3 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Sept 35.2 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Sept 36.5 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Sept 36.1 °C 40 % 25 km/h 0.4 mm High 22
13 Sept 34.9 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 18
14 Sept after 34.1 °C 49 % 36 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 4
15 Sept after 32.1 °C 51 % 31 km/h 6.9 mm Very low 2
16 Sept after 29.4 °C 56 % 37 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 2
17 Sept after 33.1 °C 51 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Low 6
18 Sept after 33.2 °C 45 % 30 km/h 5.5 mm Very low 2
19 Sept after 33.9 °C 51 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Low 6
20 Sept after 35.6 °C 49 % 26 km/h 1.4 mm Low 6
21 Sept after 34.7 °C 45 % 21 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 · 16 Aug 2018
After · 20 Sept 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 · 235Every 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 23 August 2018 and 13 September 2018: 22 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 3,159 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (3,187 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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.