Lábrea fire, 23 August 2026 Lábrea
The fire started on 23 August 2026 in Lábrea, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,014 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 72th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 161 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.
- Burnt area
- 8,014ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 23 Aug 2026 – 14 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 653
- in a single hotspot: 209 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 7.7GW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 18 Sept.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,356 ha in 2021, 5,747 ha in 2022, 575 ha in 2023, 9,257 ha in 2024, 4,071 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,958 ha that had burned before.
- 8,884 ha Lábrea fire, August 2024 42,438 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,446 ha Lábrea fire, August 2022 6,053 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,473 ha Lábrea fire, August 2025 3,479 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
8,079 ha reached on 16 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Aug | 36.8 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Aug | 36.6 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Aug | 35.0 °C | 46 % | 30 km/h | 2.4 mm | Low 11 |
| 19 Aug | 32.8 °C | 53 % | 21 km/h | 5.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 20 Aug | 32.5 °C | 56 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 21 Aug | 32.8 °C | 49 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 22 Aug | 34.8 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 23 Aug | 35.2 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 24 Aug | 32.8 °C | 54 % | 18 km/h | 1.2 mm | Low 10 |
| 25 Aug | 35.2 °C | 42 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 26 Aug | 34.9 °C | 44 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 27 Aug | 37.0 °C | 36 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 28 Aug | 33.1 °C | 56 % | 29 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 29 Aug | 35.8 °C | 42 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 30 Aug | 37.2 °C | 35 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 31 Aug | 36.2 °C | 42 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 1 Sept | 37.3 °C | 37 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 2 Sept | 35.4 °C | 48 % | 23 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 3 Sept | 34.9 °C | 51 % | 18 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 Sept | 34.7 °C | 53 % | 22 km/h | 1.8 mm | Low 11 |
| 5 Sept | 35.3 °C | 45 % | 23 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 6 Sept | 33.0 °C | 58 % | 35 km/h | 21.9 mm | Very low 3 |
| 7 Sept | 28.6 °C | 61 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 8 Sept | 32.9 °C | 47 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 9 Sept | 34.9 °C | 45 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 10 Sept | 34.7 °C | 48 % | 20 km/h | 2.4 mm | Low 6 |
| 11 Sept | 34.5 °C | 53 % | 20 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 12 Sept | 31.8 °C | 67 % | 19 km/h | 15.8 mm | Very low 0 |
| 13 Sept | 30.4 °C | 70 % | 31 km/h | 3.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 14 Sept | 29.8 °C | 59 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 15 Sept after | 33.8 °C | 48 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 16 Sept after | 34.6 °C | 45 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 17 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 50 % | 27 km/h | 2.9 mm | Very low 3 |
| 18 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 58 % | 16 km/h | 1.5 mm | Very low 3 |
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 13 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 297 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 129: 8.6 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 · 653Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 42,438 haLábrea2 August 2024 · 40 days · 4 km away
- 41,632 haLábrea28 July 2021 · 34 days · 22 km away
- 14,628 haLábrea29 July 2019 · 23 days · 24 km away
- 15,510 haLábrea7 August 2020 · 20 days · 26 km away
- 35,986 haLábrea14 August 2022 · 28 days · 31 km away
- 14,695 haLábrea31 July 2019 · 24 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lábrea fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2026 and 14 September 2026: 23 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 8,014 hectares (80.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lábrea (8,079 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 35 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
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.