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Aracatu fire, October 2026 Aracatu, Caraíbas, Brumado

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2026, 16:48 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 1 October 2026 in Aracatu, Brazil. It has been active for 17 days, with 258 heat detections and an area with fire of about 3,206 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 5 municipalities.

GWIS (Copernicus) has not yet published the perimeter of this fire. It rebuilds it from hotspots, which can take several days, and it does not always arrive. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). If the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.

Area with fire
≈ 3,206ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
17days
1 Oct 2026 – 17 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
5
municipalities
Started on
1 Oct
2026
Heat detections
258
in a single hotspot: 279 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Oct 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

23567891011121314151617

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
44km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.1 mm on 18 Oct.

What happened to each town

  1. Aracatu 13,936 inhabitants where it started
    2,086 ha reached on 1 Oct
    1.4 %
  2. Caraíbas 9,940 inhabitants
    742 ha reached on 1 Oct
    0.9 %
  3. Brumado 70,510 inhabitants
    224 ha reached on 2 Oct
    0.1 %
  4. Maetinga 6,973 inhabitants
    140 ha reached on 5 Oct
    0.2 %
  5. Tanhaçu 21,006 inhabitants
    14 ha reached on 1 Oct
    0.0 %

Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. 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 Oct 35.7 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Oct 34.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Oct 31.5 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Oct 31.6 °C 42 % 44 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 16
5 Oct 31.3 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
6 Oct 32.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
7 Oct 32.4 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
8 Oct 32.6 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Oct 33.3 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Oct 33.7 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Oct 33.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Oct 33.1 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Oct 33.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Oct 34.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Oct 35.5 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Oct 33.4 °C 41 % 37 km/h 16.6 mm Very low 4
17 Oct 33.8 °C 42 % 39 km/h 3.6 mm Low 8
18 Oct after 26.9 °C 73 % 32 km/h 13.1 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2026
After · 23 Oct 2026

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 16 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1032 µg/m³
Optical depth0.81
2930123456789101112131415161718
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 · 258Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aracatu fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 1 October 2026 to 17 October 2026 (17 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
How much area did it burn?
There is no perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 3,206 hectares with fire (32.1 km²), a rough figure; GWIS will give its own when it publishes the perimeter, which can take several days.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Aracatu (2,086 ha, 1.4 %); Caraíbas (742 ha, 0.9 %); Brumado (224 ha, 0.1 %); Maetinga (140 ha, 0.2 %); Tanhaçu (14 ha, 0.0 %).
Is the Aracatu fire still active?
No fire detections since 17 Oct 2026, 16:48 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 44 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.

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.