How long did the Alcinópolis fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2025 and 7 October 2025: 13 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 16,851 hectares (168.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Alcinópolis (12,360 ha, 2.8 %); Costa Rica (4,572 ha, 1.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2025-09-25 → 2025-10-07

Alcinópolis fire, September 2025 Alcinópolis, Costa Rica

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2025, 04:39 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2025 in Alcinópolis, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,851 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 69th largest in Mato Grosso do Sul since 2016 (of 506 with a page). Number 46 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.

Burnt area: 16,851ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 25 Sept 2025 – 7 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 25 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 637; in a single hotspot: 489 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 7.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 7 Oct 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept7 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

25262728291234567

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

48km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 8 Oct.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 40 ha in 2018, 13,906 ha in 2020.

13,906 ha Alto Taquari fire, September 2020 44,095 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Alcinópolis 4,537 inhabitants where it started

12,360 ha reached on 25 Sept

2.8 %
Costa Rica 26,037 inhabitants

4,572 ha reached on 29 Sept

1.1 %

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)
25 Sept	33.8 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 41
26 Sept	33.3 °C	21 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
27 Sept	34.2 °C	18 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Sept	32.9 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
29 Sept	33.7 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Sept	35.6 °C	14 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
1 Oct	32.1 °C	28 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
2 Oct	35.2 °C	18 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
3 Oct	33.5 °C	25 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
4 Oct	34.4 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
5 Oct	36.0 °C	16 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
6 Oct	36.0 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
7 Oct	31.6 °C	41 %	27 km/h	18.7 mm	Very low 5
8 Oct after	28.2 °C	56 %	27 km/h	1.3 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Sept 2025

After · 14 Oct 2025

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 7 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 80 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak80 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1081 µg/m³

Optical depth0.99

WHO 15

232425262728293012345678910

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 637Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Alcinópolis fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2025 and 7 October 2025: 13 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 16,851 hectares (168.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Alcinópolis (12,360 ha, 2.8 %); Costa Rica (4,572 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned