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Manicoré fire, 4 August 2020 Manicoré

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2020, 16:57 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2020 in Manicoré, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,507 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 134th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 457 in Brazil in 2020, of 957.

Burnt area
5,507ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
4 Aug 2020 – 11 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Aug
2020
Heat detections
306
in a single hotspot: 213 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

456789101112

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
34km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,272 ha in 2017, 2,652 ha in 2018, 2,618 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,278 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manicoré where it started
    5,555 ha reached on 4 Aug
    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)
4 Aug 36.4 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Aug 35.4 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Aug 35.6 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 35.3 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 35.7 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Aug 35.6 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Aug 36.4 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug 35.8 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Aug after 37.1 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Aug after 36.2 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
14 Aug after 35.9 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug after 36.7 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Aug after 36.6 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Aug after 39.3 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Aug after 37.7 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Aug after 37.1 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Aug after 36.1 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 27.2 °C 49 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Aug after 27.8 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Aug after 32.4 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Aug after 33.1 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Aug after 34.2 °C 40 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Aug after 34.5 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Aug after 36.8 °C 37 % 17 km/h 1.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2020
After · 18 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 · 306Every 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 4 August 2020 and 11 August 2020: 8 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 5,507 hectares (55.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manicoré (5,555 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

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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.