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Lábrea fire, July 2020 Lábrea

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2020, 18:06 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2020 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,021 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 254th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 644 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
4,021ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
31 Jul 2020 – 19 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
31 Jul
2020
Heat detections
332
in a single hotspot: 304 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
8.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

3112345789101112131415171819

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
45km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 30 Aug.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 581 ha in 2016, 576 ha in 2017, 1,138 ha in 2018, 3,787 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,604 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lábrea 45,448 inhabitants where it started
    4,060 ha reached on 28 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)
28 Jul 32.7 °C 47 % 16 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 12
29 Jul 32.5 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Jul 30.6 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
31 Jul 32.1 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Aug 33.3 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Aug 33.6 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Aug 33.6 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Aug 34.1 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Aug 35.1 °C 33 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Aug 34.8 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Aug 34.6 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Aug 35.0 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Aug 35.3 °C 31 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Aug 34.1 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Aug 34.9 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Aug 35.4 °C 34 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Aug 35.3 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug 36.0 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
15 Aug 33.8 °C 52 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
16 Aug 35.1 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Aug 36.6 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Aug 36.7 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Aug 35.8 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Aug after 36.6 °C 37 % 38 km/h 3.7 mm Moderate 18
21 Aug after 20.7 °C 55 % 45 km/h 2.8 mm Low 6
22 Aug after 23.8 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
23 Aug after 29.0 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
24 Aug after 32.8 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
25 Aug after 34.2 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Aug after 35.2 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 Aug after 37.7 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Aug after 37.0 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
29 Aug after 35.8 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Aug after 36.8 °C 38 % 22 km/h 1.1 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2020
After · 26 Aug 2020

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 · 332Every 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 31 July 2020 and 19 August 2020: 20 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 4,021 hectares (40.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (4,060 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.