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Barra fire, October 2026 Buritirama, Barra

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2026, 16:50 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2026 in Barra, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,588 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 170th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 229 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.

Burnt area
6,588ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
12 Oct 2026 – 17 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
12 Oct
2026
Heat detections
137
in a single hotspot: 215 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Oct 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1213141517

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
39km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,197 ha in 2019, 1,350 ha in 2021, 492 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,043 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Buritirama 19,589 inhabitants
    4,101 ha
    1.0 %
  2. Barra 51,092 inhabitants where it started
    2,520 ha
    0.2 %

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)
12 Oct 36.2 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Oct 36.9 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Oct 37.4 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Oct 38.4 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 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 14 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1023 µg/m³
Optical depth0.48
1011121314
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 · 137Every 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 Barra fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 October 2026 and 17 October 2026: 6 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 6,588 hectares (65.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Buritirama (4,101 ha, 1.0 %); Barra (2,520 ha, 0.2 %).
Is the Barra fire still active?
No fire detections since 17 Oct 2026, 16:50 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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

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.