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Lizarda fire, 3 September 2020 Lizarda

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2020, 17:02 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2020 in Lizarda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,213 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 116th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 122 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
14,213ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
3 Sept 2020 – 18 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Sept
2020
Heat detections
476
in a single hotspot: 399 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112131415161718

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
55km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,495 ha in 2016, 2,557 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,115 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lizarda 2,999 inhabitants where it started
    14,307 ha reached on 1 Sept
    2.5 %

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 Sept 35.5 °C 17 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
2 Sept 34.8 °C 20 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
3 Sept 34.8 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Sept 35.4 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Sept 36.2 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
6 Sept 35.5 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
7 Sept 35.4 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Sept 36.9 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Sept 37.0 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
10 Sept 37.0 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Sept 37.3 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Sept 36.7 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
13 Sept 35.6 °C 17 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
14 Sept 36.1 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
15 Sept 35.5 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
16 Sept 37.1 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
17 Sept 36.9 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Sept 37.7 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Sept after 38.1 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Sept after 38.0 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Sept after 35.6 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Sept after 35.7 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Sept after 37.0 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Sept after 37.5 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Sept after 34.1 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Sept after 35.3 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Sept after 37.6 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Sept after 39.3 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Aug 2020
After · 25 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 · 476Every 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 Lizarda fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 September 2020 and 18 September 2020: 16 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 14,213 hectares (142.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lizarda (14,307 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, class Extreme.
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.