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Lábrea fire, 8 August 2021 Lábrea

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2021, 05:37 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2021 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,317 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 377th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 708 in Brazil in 2021, of 814.

Burnt area
3,317ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
8 Aug 2021 – 27 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Aug
2021
Heat detections
248
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516172021222324252627

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
36km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.8 mm on 29 Aug.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 134 ha in 2016, 20 ha in 2017, 2,002 ha in 2018, 1,042 ha in 2019, 2,325 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,700 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lábrea 45,448 inhabitants where it started
    3,344 ha reached on 8 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)
8 Aug 36.2 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug 35.9 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Aug 35.2 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Aug 35.0 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug 32.3 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 32.9 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 34.2 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug 34.2 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Aug 36.2 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug 35.8 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Aug 35.7 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug 35.5 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug 34.2 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Aug 35.0 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.7 mm High 23
22 Aug 35.4 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Aug 36.3 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Aug 36.4 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Aug 36.9 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
26 Aug 37.9 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
27 Aug 33.2 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm High 24
28 Aug after 33.9 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Aug after 31.2 °C 63 % 28 km/h 12.8 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2021
After · 3 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 · 248Every 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 8 August 2021 and 27 August 2021: 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 3,317 hectares (33.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lábrea (3,344 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.