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Careiro fire, September 2026 Careiro da Várzea, Careiro

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2026, 18:02 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2026 in Careiro, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,135 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 155th largest in Amazonas since 2016 (of 450 with a page). Number 336 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Careiro · 2023Careiro da Várzea · 2026Careiro da Várzea · 2026Careiro da Várzea · 2026

Burnt area
5,135ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
5 Sept 2026 – 24 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2026
Heat detections
187
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
104MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept24 Sept
22 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

5 Sept 2026 · 5 MW · 1 6 Sept 2026 · 9 MW · 3 7 Sept 2026 · 44 MW · 3 8 Sept 2026 · 37 MW · 1 9 Sept 2026 · 3 MW · 1 10 Sept 2026 · 95 MW · 7 12 Sept 2026 · 9 MW · 1 13 Sept 2026 · 79 MW · 9 14 Sept 2026 · 207 MW · 13 15 Sept 2026 · 21 MW · 5 16 Sept 2026 · 92 MW · 12 17 Sept 2026 · 20 MW · 8 19 Sept 2026 · 275 MW · 24 20 Sept 2026 · 374 MW · 35 21 Sept 2026 · 111 MW · 24 22 Sept 2026 · 289 MW · 40
5 Sept 8 Sept 12 Sept 15 Sept 19 Sept 20 Sept 22 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
38km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.6 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,859 ha in 2023.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 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. Careiro da Várzea 19,637 inhabitants
    2,606 ha reached on 5 Sept
    1.0 %
  2. Careiro 30,792 inhabitants where it started
    2,562 ha reached on 6 Sept
    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.

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 36.0 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 36.9 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Sept 37.2 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Sept 35.7 °C 42 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Sept 34.3 °C 50 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Sept 35.2 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
11 Sept 34.3 °C 51 % 38 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 15
12 Sept 36.5 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Sept 37.6 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Sept 37.4 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Sept 36.0 °C 45 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Sept 36.2 °C 41 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Sept 34.8 °C 49 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Sept 35.2 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Sept 36.1 °C 40 % 38 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 14
20 Sept 37.5 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Sept 37.1 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Sept 38.3 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Sept 38.2 °C 35 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Sept 36.8 °C 43 % 22 km/h 3.0 mm Low 10
25 Sept after 34.4 °C 54 % 30 km/h 7.6 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2026
After · 1 Oct 2026

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 24 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 130 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 91: 6.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak130 µg/m³
Days over the guideline22 days
PM10135 µg/m³
Optical depth1.73
3456789101112131415161718192021222324252627
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 · 187Every 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 Careiro fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 September 2026 to 24 September 2026 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 September 2026 to 24 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,135 hectares (51.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Careiro da Várzea (2,606 ha, 1.0 %); Careiro (2,562 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
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.

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 11 September 2026 to 24 September 2026. 187 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.

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.