Benedito Leite fire, September 2025 São Félix de Balsas, Benedito Leite, Uruçuí
The fire started on 5 September 2025 in Benedito Leite, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,889 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 171th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 608 with a page). Number 266 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 5,889ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 5 Sept 2025 – 15 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 5 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 118
- in a single hotspot: 42 MW
- Danger at start
- 57
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 109MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 823 ha in 2016, 3,311 ha in 2017, 23 ha in 2018, 427 ha in 2020, 4,747 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,469 ha that had burned before.
- 4,653 ha São Félix de Balsas fire, August 2024 8,264 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,505 ha São Félix de Balsas fire, August 2017 11,924 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 246 ha São Félix de Balsas fire, September 2020 3,135 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 94 ha São Félix de Balsas fire, September 2024 4,139 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
São Félix de Balsas 4,402 inhabitants3,244 ha reached on 6 Sept1.6 %
-
2,647 ha reached on 5 Sept1.5 %
-
Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants40 ha reached on 10 Sept0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.49 hectares of built-up land and about 40 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Sept | 35.8 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 6 Sept | 36.7 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 7 Sept | 37.5 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 8 Sept | 37.0 °C | 15 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 9 Sept | 36.9 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 10 Sept | 38.6 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 11 Sept | 39.0 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Sept | 37.4 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 13 Sept | 36.8 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 14 Sept | 37.3 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 15 Sept | 38.3 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 16 Sept after | 37.8 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Sept after | 38.7 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 18 Sept after | 37.7 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Sept after | 37.6 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 20 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 21 Sept after | 37.1 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 40 % | 30 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Sept after | 37.8 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Sept after | 37.6 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 25 Sept after | 37.2 °C | 22 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
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 12 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 118Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,264 haSão Félix de Balsas20 August 2024 · 20 days · 0 km away
- 11,924 haSão Félix de Balsas21 August 2017 · 37 days · 7 km away
- 13,888 haSão Félix de BalsasAugust 2023 · 20 days · 17 km away
- 8,162 haSão Félix de BalsasOctober 2025 · 11 days · 19 km away
- 10,062 haLoretoSeptember 2024 · 12 days · 21 km away
- 8,441 haUruçuí19 September 2026 · 12 days · 22 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Benedito Leite fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2025 and 15 September 2025: 11 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 5,889 hectares (58.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: São Félix de Balsas (3,244 ha, 1.6 %); Benedito Leite (2,647 ha, 1.5 %); Uruçuí (40 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 118 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.
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.