Lábrea fire, 1 August 2024 Lábrea
The fire started on 1 August 2024 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,699 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 80th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 424 in Brazil in 2024, of 1301.
- Burnt area
- 7,699ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 1 Aug 2024 – 9 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 1 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 480
- in a single hotspot: 292 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 6.1GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,806 ha in 2016, 2,470 ha in 2017, 5,277 ha in 2018, 4,909 ha in 2019, 3,527 ha in 2020, 4,534 ha in 2021, 5,312 ha in 2022, 258 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,727 ha that had burned before.
- 5,095 ha Lábrea fire, August 2022 35,986 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,909 ha Lábrea fire, July 2019 14,695 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,794 ha Lábrea fire, August 2016 8,338 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,094 ha Lábrea fire, July 2021 41,632 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,376 ha Lábrea fire, August 2018 11,450 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 391 ha Lábrea fire, August 2020 15,510 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Lábrea fire, July 2016 4,748 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
7,767 ha reached on 1 Aug0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | 34.8 °C | 38 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Aug | 35.3 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Aug | 34.6 °C | 45 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Aug | 35.0 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 2.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 5 Aug | 35.6 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Aug | 33.7 °C | 41 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Aug | 33.2 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Aug | 36.2 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Aug | 28.8 °C | 57 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 10 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 34 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Aug after | 33.9 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Aug after | 33.9 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Aug after | 34.7 °C | 24 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Aug after | 36.4 °C | 25 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Aug after | 37.6 °C | 28 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 17 Aug after | 34.9 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 18 Aug after | 36.9 °C | 32 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Aug after | 37.1 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Aug after | 37.9 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Aug after | 36.6 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Aug after | 36.9 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Aug after | 38.2 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Aug after | 39.0 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 4 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 363 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 170: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 480Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 35,986 haLábrea14 August 2022 · 28 days · 6 km away
- 15,510 haLábrea7 August 2020 · 20 days · 10 km away
- 14,695 haLábrea31 July 2019 · 24 days · 10 km away
- 14,628 haLábrea29 July 2019 · 23 days · 12 km away
- 41,632 haLábrea28 July 2021 · 34 days · 14 km away
- 43,699 haLábrea13 July 2024 · 54 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lábrea fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2024 and 9 August 2024: 9 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 7,699 hectares (77.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lábrea (7,767 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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
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.