Bertolínia fire, September 2026 Sebastião Leal, Bertolínia, Manoel Emídio
The fire started on 8 September 2026 in Bertolínia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,765 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 162th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 803 with a page). Number 173 in Brazil in 2026, of 747.
- Burnt area
- 7,765ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 8 Sept 2026 – 24 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 8 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 253
- in a single hotspot: 205 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.8GW
- sum of detected power
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 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 367 ha in 2017, 3,970 ha in 2018, 372 ha in 2019, 1,814 ha in 2020, 823 ha in 2021, 2,774 ha in 2022, 1,226 ha in 2023, 3,903 ha in 2024, 1,747 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,982 ha that had burned before.
- 3,970 ha Sebastião Leal fire, August 2018 5,152 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,201 ha Bertolínia fire, September 2024 3,557 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,774 ha Sebastião Leal fire, September 2022 3,009 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 519 ha Sebastião Leal fire, August 2025 6,543 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 297 ha Sebastião Leal fire, October 2025 5,567 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Sebastião Leal 4,446 inhabitants6,089 ha reached on 10 Sept1.9 %
-
1,693 ha reached on 8 Sept1.4 %
-
Manoel Emídio 5,209 inhabitants37 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Sept | 35.1 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Sept | 35.5 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 10 Sept | 34.6 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 11 Sept | 34.8 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Sept | 35.7 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Sept | 37.5 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Sept | 37.0 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Sept | 36.7 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 16 Sept | 38.2 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 17 Sept | 36.2 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 18 Sept | 34.5 °C | 31 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 19 Sept | 35.6 °C | 19 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Sept | 34.3 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 21 Sept | 36.8 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 22 Sept | 37.0 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Sept | 37.5 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Sept | 37.1 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 25 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 27 Sept after | 36.8 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Sept after | 37.3 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 30 Sept after | 38.3 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 1 Oct after | 37.6 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 2 Oct after | 34.0 °C | 42 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 37 |
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 24 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily 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 · 253Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bertolínia fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2026 and 24 September 2026: 17 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 7,765 hectares (77.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sebastião Leal (6,089 ha, 1.9 %); Bertolínia (1,693 ha, 1.4 %); Manoel Emídio (37 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Bertolínia fire still active?
- No fire detections since 23 Sept 2026, 16:01 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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
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.