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Benedito Leite fire, 21 August 2025 Benedito Leite, Pastos Bons, Nova Iorque

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2025, 16:40 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2025 in Benedito Leite, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,005 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 101th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 608 with a page). Number 168 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.

Compare with…

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Burnt area
8,005ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
21 Aug 2025 – 12 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
21 Aug
2025
Heat detections
243
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
60MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug12 Sept
12 Sept 2025

How it evolved, day by day

21 Aug 2025 · 2 MW · 3 22 Aug 2025 · 31 MW · 5 23 Aug 2025 · 11 MW · 3 24 Aug 2025 · 14 MW · 3 26 Aug 2025 · 7 MW · 3 27 Aug 2025 · 3 MW · 1 28 Aug 2025 · 57 MW · 6 29 Aug 2025 · 28 MW · 5 30 Aug 2025 · 69 MW · 13 31 Aug 2025 · 171 MW · 40 1 Sept 2025 · 192 MW · 34 2 Sept 2025 · 252 MW · 49 3 Sept 2025 · 116 MW · 36 5 Sept 2025 · 12 MW · 2 6 Sept 2025 · 24 MW · 6 7 Sept 2025 · 45 MW · 8 8 Sept 2025 · 27 MW · 6 9 Sept 2025 · 11 MW · 3 10 Sept 2025 · 2 MW · 1 11 Sept 2025 · 135 MW · 8 12 Sept 2025 · 48 MW · 8
21 Aug 24 Aug 28 Aug 31 Aug 2 Sept 3 Sept 7 Sept 10 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
50km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,266 ha in 2018, 4 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.1% of the area of London (80 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

  1. Benedito Leite 5,469 inhabitants where it started
    7,072 ha reached on 21 Aug
    3.9 %
  2. Pastos Bons 18,802 inhabitants
    611 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.4 %
  3. Nova Iorque
    372 ha reached on 22 Aug
    0.4 %

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 area1.0 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.0 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (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)
21 Aug 34.6 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Aug 35.2 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Aug 35.6 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Aug 35.7 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Aug 36.7 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Aug 35.8 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Aug 36.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Aug 37.0 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Aug 36.6 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Aug 36.3 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Aug 36.0 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Sept 36.3 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept 35.8 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Sept 35.2 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Sept 35.6 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Sept 35.4 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Sept 36.0 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Sept 36.7 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Sept 36.4 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Sept 36.0 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Sept 38.0 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Sept 38.1 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Sept 36.4 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Sept after 36.3 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Sept after 36.5 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Sept after 37.3 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
16 Sept after 37.2 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Sept after 37.7 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Sept after 37.3 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Sept after 36.4 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Sept after 35.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Sept after 36.9 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Sept after 34.6 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Aug 2025
After · 19 Sept 2025

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 13 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1025 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
1920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819
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 · 243Every 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 Benedito Leite fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 August 2025 to 12 September 2025 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 August 2025 to 12 September 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,005 hectares (80.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Benedito Leite (7,072 ha, 3.9 %); Pastos Bons (611 ha, 0.4 %); Nova Iorque (372 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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 ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 28 August 2025 → 21 August 2025.

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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 August 2025 to 12 September 2025. 243 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.