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Lábrea fire, 25 July 2021 Lábrea

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2021, 17:16 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2021 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 53 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,003 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 93th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 247 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lábrea · 2019Lábrea · 2020Lábrea · 2019Lábrea · 2016

Burnt area
7,003ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
53days
25 Jul 2021 – 15 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Jul
2021
Heat detections
640
in a single hotspot: 257 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Average daily power
165MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul15 Sept
15 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

25 Jul 2021 · 21 MW · 5 26 Jul 2021 · 8 MW · 1 27 Jul 2021 · 10 MW · 2 28 Jul 2021 · 98 MW · 10 29 Jul 2021 · 66 MW · 10 30 Jul 2021 · 53 MW · 10 31 Jul 2021 · 19 MW · 5 1 Aug 2021 · 97 MW · 9 2 Aug 2021 · 213 MW · 19 3 Aug 2021 · 21 MW · 9 4 Aug 2021 · 87 MW · 10 5 Aug 2021 · 416 MW · 13 6 Aug 2021 · 233 MW · 28 7 Aug 2021 · 101 MW · 14 8 Aug 2021 · 163 MW · 13 9 Aug 2021 · 329 MW · 25 10 Aug 2021 · 190 MW · 37 11 Aug 2021 · 561 MW · 21 12 Aug 2021 · 168 MW · 28 13 Aug 2021 · 35 MW · 8 14 Aug 2021 · 38 MW · 6 15 Aug 2021 · 76 MW · 6 16 Aug 2021 · 74 MW · 18 17 Aug 2021 · 130 MW · 11 18 Aug 2021 · 20 MW · 10 19 Aug 2021 · 176 MW · 20 20 Aug 2021 · 539 MW · 26 21 Aug 2021 · 16 MW · 15 22 Aug 2021 · 209 MW · 13 23 Aug 2021 · 229 MW · 13 24 Aug 2021 · 1,280 MW · 37 25 Aug 2021 · 511 MW · 60 26 Aug 2021 · 74 MW · 25 27 Aug 2021 · 62 MW · 17 28 Aug 2021 · 622 MW · 7 29 Aug 2021 · 614 MW · 22 31 Aug 2021 · 33 MW · 6 2 Sept 2021 · 18 MW · 1 3 Sept 2021 · 178 MW · 11 4 Sept 2021 · 65 MW · 7 5 Sept 2021 · 1 MW · 2 6 Sept 2021 · 13 MW · 3 7 Sept 2021 · 56 MW · 3 8 Sept 2021 · 31 MW · 5 9 Sept 2021 · 16 MW · 2 12 Sept 2021 · 12 MW · 1 13 Sept 2021 · 5 MW · 1 14 Sept 2021 · 18 MW · 5 15 Sept 2021 · 57 MW · 10
25 Jul 1 Aug 8 Aug 15 Aug 22 Aug 24 Aug 29 Aug 7 Sept

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
46km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 49.0 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,087 ha in 2016, 2,384 ha in 2017, 2,987 ha in 2018, 8,212 ha in 2019, 6,722 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,444 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.4% of the area of London (70 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Lábrea 45,448 inhabitants where it started
    7,069 ha reached on 25 Jul
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
25 Jul 34.8 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Jul 35.1 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
27 Jul 35.3 °C 42 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
28 Jul 29.9 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
29 Jul 25.8 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jul 28.3 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul 31.1 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Aug 33.0 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Aug 32.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug 33.2 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Aug 34.0 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Aug 34.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Aug 34.7 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Aug 35.3 °C 31 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Aug 36.0 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Aug 35.6 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Aug 34.4 °C 39 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug 33.6 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
12 Aug 31.1 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Aug 32.0 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug 33.7 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug 33.8 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Aug 36.0 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug 36.7 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Aug 35.9 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug 35.3 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug 35.0 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug 35.5 °C 40 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Aug 35.4 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Aug 36.3 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Aug 36.2 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Aug 37.0 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Aug 36.9 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
27 Aug 32.9 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
28 Aug 33.8 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Aug 33.8 °C 47 % 28 km/h 3.4 mm Low 8
30 Aug 34.2 °C 47 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 13
31 Aug 33.7 °C 49 % 24 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 14
1 Sept 33.8 °C 52 % 23 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 14
2 Sept 34.5 °C 43 % 29 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 18
3 Sept 36.3 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
4 Sept 36.9 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
5 Sept 35.5 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
6 Sept 34.5 °C 41 % 35 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 17
7 Sept 34.9 °C 44 % 33 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 16
8 Sept 36.1 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm High 25
9 Sept 36.7 °C 39 % 27 km/h 11.8 mm Low 6
10 Sept 28.3 °C 75 % 23 km/h 49.0 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jul 2021
After · 22 Sept 2021

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 · 640Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 July 2021 to 15 September 2021 (53 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 August 2021 to 8 September 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,003 hectares (70.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (7,069 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 August 2021 to 8 September 2021. 640 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.