How long did the Bahía Negra fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 September 2026 and 27 September 2026: 12 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 2,852 hectares (28.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bahía Negra (2,857 ha, 0.1 %).

Is the Bahía Negra fire still active?

No fire detections since 27 Sept 2026, 18:02 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 42.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Paraguay (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

PY · Paraguay · 2026-09-16 → 2026-09-27

Bahía Negra fire, 16 September 2026 Bahía Negra

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2026, 18:02 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2026 in Bahía Negra, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,852 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 124th largest in ALTO PARAGUAY since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 17 in Paraguay in 2026, of 79.

Burnt area: 2,852ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 16 Sept 2026 – 27 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 16 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 211; in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 27 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept27 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

16171820212224252627

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

The weather it burned in

42°high

73km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.9 mm on 29 Sept.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 130 ha in 2023, 447 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 469 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Bahía Negra where it started

2,857 ha reached on 16 Sept

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)
9 Sept	36.6 °C	28 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
10 Sept	36.4 °C	32 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Sept	38.8 °C	31 %	60 km/h	6.6 mm	Moderate 21
12 Sept	24.3 °C	60 %	35 km/h	10.7 mm	Very low 1
13 Sept	19.8 °C	66 %	32 km/h	8.5 mm	Very low 0
14 Sept	23.0 °C	54 %	23 km/h	1.0 mm	Very low 1
15 Sept	25.4 °C	44 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
16 Sept	30.4 °C	39 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
17 Sept	35.8 °C	33 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
18 Sept	38.2 °C	27 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 23
19 Sept	34.3 °C	43 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
20 Sept	39.1 °C	27 %	66 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
21 Sept	39.7 °C	26 %	73 km/h	2.6 mm	High 33
22 Sept	24.4 °C	53 %	46 km/h	6.2 mm	Very low 2
23 Sept	24.3 °C	47 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
24 Sept	32.8 °C	39 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
25 Sept	39.3 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
26 Sept	41.0 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
27 Sept	42.0 °C	23 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
28 Sept after	42.3 °C	21 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
29 Sept after	41.3 °C	25 %	60 km/h	10.9 mm	High 22

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Sept 2026

After · 4 Oct 2026

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 26 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak36 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1036 µg/m³

Optical depth0.70

WHO 15

789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930

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 · 211Every 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 Paraguay ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bahía Negra fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 September 2026 and 27 September 2026: 12 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 2,852 hectares (28.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bahía Negra (2,857 ha, 0.1 %).
Is the Bahía Negra fire still active?: No fire detections since 27 Sept 2026, 18:02 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 42.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Paraguay (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: 132 · 911

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 132 · 911.

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 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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