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Lábrea fire, 24 August 2018 Lábrea

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2018, 05:30 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2018 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,083 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 425th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 278 in Brazil in 2018, of 291.

Burnt area
3,083ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
24 Aug 2018 – 31 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Aug
2018
Heat detections
187
in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

24252627282930

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
42km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,199 ha in 2016, 1,497 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,940 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lábrea 45,448 inhabitants where it started
    3,106 ha reached on 24 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)
24 Aug 33.2 °C 50 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
25 Aug 33.0 °C 52 % 25 km/h 4.3 mm Very low 1
26 Aug 27.1 °C 54 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 5
27 Aug 32.0 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
28 Aug 33.8 °C 41 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
29 Aug 34.4 °C 45 % 18 km/h 0.7 mm Low 9
30 Aug 34.2 °C 47 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
31 Aug 34.6 °C 47 % 26 km/h 1.7 mm Low 6
1 Sept after 35.1 °C 49 % 24 km/h 0.6 mm Low 10
2 Sept after 34.1 °C 45 % 29 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 4
3 Sept after 27.3 °C 58 % 42 km/h 1.2 mm Very low 4
4 Sept after 32.5 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Sept after 33.2 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Sept after 34.8 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
7 Sept after 35.3 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
8 Sept after 35.5 °C 37 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
9 Sept after 36.4 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Sept after 35.3 °C 43 % 27 km/h 2.4 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2018
After · 7 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 · 187Every 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 24 August 2018 and 31 August 2018: 8 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 3,083 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (3,106 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
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.