Autazes fire, 3 October 2026 Autazes, Careiro da Várzea
The fire started on 3 October 2026 in Autazes, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,875 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 76th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 169 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 7,875ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 3 Oct 2026 – 17 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 258
- in a single hotspot: 126 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 231MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
7,746 ha reached on 4 Oct1.0 %
-
Careiro da Várzea 19,637 inhabitants180 ha reached on 8 Oct0.1 %
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 Oct | 35.3 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 3.2 mm | Very low 5 |
| 5 Oct | 36.3 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 3.3 mm | Very low 4 |
| 6 Oct | 36.8 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 7 Oct | 36.5 °C | 30 % | 47 km/h | 2.3 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 8 Oct | 37.5 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 9 Oct | 38.0 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 8 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 74 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,507 haCareiro da VárzeaSeptember 2026 · 27 days · 11 km away
- 4,313 haCareiro da Várzea29 September 2026 · 19 days · 12 km away
- 7,870 haCareiro da VárzeaAugust 2026 · 43 days · 22 km away
- 4,996 haAutazes29 September 2026 · 19 days · 22 km away
- 8,132 haAutazes 6 October 2026 · 18 days · 23 km away
- 4,091 haAutazes30 September 2026 · 13 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Autazes fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 October 2026 to 17 October 2026 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 October 2026 to 17 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,875 hectares (78.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Autazes (7,746 ha, 1.0 %); Careiro da Várzea (180 ha, 0.1 %).
- Is the Autazes fire still active?
- No fire detections since 17 Oct 2026, 18:32 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
- 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 October 2026 to 17 October 2026. 258 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.