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Lizarda fire, 27 September 2020 Lizarda

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2020, 16:06 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2020 in Lizarda, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,385 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1036th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 808 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
3,385ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
27 Sept 2020 – 7 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Sept
2020
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
592MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept7 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

272829301234567

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high
44km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 11 Oct.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 672 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Lizarda 2,999 inhabitants where it started
    3,407 ha reached on 27 Sept
    0.6 %

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)
27 Sept 36.5 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Sept 38.2 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Sept 38.2 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Sept 36.7 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Oct 37.2 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Oct 38.2 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Oct 38.4 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Oct 38.3 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Oct 37.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Oct 37.5 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Oct 38.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Oct after 38.6 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Oct after 36.9 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Oct after 33.1 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
11 Oct after 29.0 °C 56 % 28 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Sept 2020
After · 14 Oct 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 · 96Every 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 27 September 2020 and 7 October 2020: 11 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 3,385 hectares (33.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lizarda (3,407 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.