Skip to content
worldfires
BR · Brazil · →

Lábrea fire, 17 August 2020 Lábrea

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2020, 06:01 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2020 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,190 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 149th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 490 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
5,190ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
17 Aug 2020 – 28 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Aug
2020
Heat detections
355
in a single hotspot: 326 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

17181920232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
46km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,290 ha in 2018, 5,060 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,069 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lábrea 45,448 inhabitants where it started
    5,234 ha reached on 16 Aug
    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)
16 Aug 35.2 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
17 Aug 36.7 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Aug 36.6 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Aug 36.0 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
20 Aug 36.6 °C 35 % 39 km/h 2.7 mm High 23
21 Aug 21.1 °C 57 % 46 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18
22 Aug 23.8 °C 47 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Aug 29.2 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
24 Aug 32.6 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Aug 34.3 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Aug 34.9 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Aug 37.6 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
28 Aug 35.9 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.8 mm High 22
29 Aug after 35.3 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Aug after 36.4 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
31 Aug after 35.1 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
1 Sept after 35.4 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
2 Sept after 33.7 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
3 Sept after 35.1 °C 44 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 Sept after 35.6 °C 42 % 19 km/h 0.5 mm High 25
5 Sept after 35.7 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
6 Sept after 35.6 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
7 Sept after 37.8 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Sept after 35.6 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Sept after 35.1 °C 40 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2020
After · 4 Sept 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 · 355Every 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 17 August 2020 and 28 August 2020: 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 5,190 hectares (51.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (5,234 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.