Canas fire, August 2026 Canas
The fire started on 29 August 2026 in Canas, Peru, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,078 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 49th largest in Cusco since 2016 (of 60 with a page). Number 79 in Peru in 2026, of 90.
The power measured by the satellite is low (28.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,078ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 29 Aug 2026 – 31 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- provinces
- Started on
- 29 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 10
- in a single hotspot: 29 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 144MW
- 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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 10 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
1,085 ha reached on 29 Aug0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Aug | 18.0 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Aug | 17.6 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 31 Aug | 18.5 °C | 5 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Sept after | 18.9 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 2 Sept after | 17.2 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Sept after | 17.0 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 4 Sept after | 16.1 °C | 21 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Sept after | 15.9 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Sept after | 15.0 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Sept after | 12.7 °C | 36 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Sept after | 12.3 °C | 37 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Sept after | 14.4 °C | 29 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Sept after | 13.2 °C | 31 % | 46 km/h | 3.0 mm | Low 7 |
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 27 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 16 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 · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,580 haCanchisSeptember 2026 · 3 days · 19 km away
- 1,849 haEspinarOctober 2026 · 3 days · 25 km away
- 1,493 haCanchis8 October 2026 · 2 days · 25 km away
- 1,319 haCanchis25 October 2022 · 3 days · 25 km away
- 1,451 haCanchisAugust 2016 · 2 days · 31 km away
- 4,553 haCanchis2 October 2026 · 6 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Canas fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2026 and 31 August 2026: 3 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 1,078 hectares (10.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Canas (1,085 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 18.5 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Peru (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: 116 · 105
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.