How long did the Barra do Garças fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2025 and 16 September 2025: 22 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 27,081 hectares (270.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Barra do Garças (26,196 ha, 2.9 %); Nova Xavantina (1,020 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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 · 2025-08-26 → 2025-09-16

Barra do Garças fire, 26 August 2025 Barra do Garças, Nova Xavantina

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2025, 04:31 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2025 in Barra do Garças, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,081 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 122th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 22 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Barra do Garças · 2020 Barra do Garças · 2021 Barra do Garças · 2017 Barra do Garças · 2019

Burnt area: 27,081ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 26 Aug 2025 – 16 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 26 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 717; in a single hotspot: 113 MW
Danger at start: 62; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 336MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug16 Sept

Play back 16 Sept 2025

How it evolved, day by day

26 Aug 30 Aug 3 Sept 7 Sept 11 Sept 12 Sept 15 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

48km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 19 Sept.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25 ha in 2016, 158 ha in 2020, 33 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 17% of the area of London (271 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Barra do Garças 69,210 inhabitants where it started

26,196 ha reached on 26 Aug

2.9 %
Nova Xavantina 24,345 inhabitants

1,020 ha reached on 12 Sept

0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area0.27 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.27 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
26 Aug	33.5 °C	20 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
27 Aug	34.0 °C	18 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
28 Aug	34.9 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
29 Aug	32.7 °C	25 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
30 Aug	33.5 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
31 Aug	33.0 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
1 Sept	34.5 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
2 Sept	34.3 °C	19 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
3 Sept	33.4 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
4 Sept	33.3 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
5 Sept	34.5 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
6 Sept	35.2 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
7 Sept	35.4 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
8 Sept	35.5 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
9 Sept	35.0 °C	18 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
10 Sept	35.7 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
11 Sept	36.9 °C	12 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
12 Sept	37.6 °C	12 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
13 Sept	37.1 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
14 Sept	34.7 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
15 Sept	34.1 °C	25 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Sept	34.8 °C	26 %	27 km/h	1.4 mm	High 29
17 Sept after	32.8 °C	31 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Sept after	34.4 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.7 mm	Very high 39
19 Sept after	32.1 °C	37 %	33 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Aug 2025

After · 23 Sept 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 14 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM1053 µg/m³

Optical depth0.77

WHO 15

242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819

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 · 717Every 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 Barra do Garças fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2025 and 16 September 2025: 22 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 27,081 hectares (270.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Barra do Garças (26,196 ha, 2.9 %); Nova Xavantina (1,020 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 717 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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