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Manicoré fire, July 2020 Manicoré

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2020, 17:41 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2020 in Manicoré, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,122 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 241th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 632 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
4,122ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
21 Jul 2020 – 15 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 Jul
2020
Heat detections
319
in a single hotspot: 173 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

21222324252627282930311234567891011121415

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
39km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 28 Aug.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,237 ha in 2016, 1,837 ha in 2018, 1,534 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,028 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manicoré where it started
    4,156 ha reached on 21 Jul
    0.1 %

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 Jul 34.9 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jul 35.7 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Jul 35.2 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Jul 34.9 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Jul 35.8 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jul 35.7 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Jul 36.1 °C 29 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jul 35.4 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jul 37.3 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jul 35.7 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Jul 35.6 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jul 34.6 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Jul 35.4 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul 36.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul 36.3 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jul 37.6 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Aug 36.6 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Aug 35.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Aug 35.5 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug 36.7 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Aug 35.8 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Aug 35.8 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 35.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 35.9 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Aug 35.4 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Aug 36.5 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Aug 36.2 °C 28 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Aug 37.2 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Aug 36.4 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug 35.9 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug 36.8 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Aug after 36.8 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug after 39.3 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Aug after 37.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug after 37.4 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug after 36.4 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 27.9 °C 48 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Aug after 28.2 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Aug after 32.7 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Aug after 33.4 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Aug after 34.5 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Aug after 34.1 °C 45 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
27 Aug after 36.9 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
28 Aug after 33.4 °C 52 % 29 km/h 3.1 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2020
After · 22 Aug 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 · 319Every 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 Manicoré fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 July 2020 and 15 August 2020: 26 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 4,122 hectares (41.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manicoré (4,156 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
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.