How long did the Cariré fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 September 2025 and 5 October 2025: 14 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 4,936 hectares (49.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cariré (3,350 ha, 4.4 %); Sobral (1,612 ha, 0.8 %); Groaíras (6 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2025-09-22 → 2025-10-05

Cariré fire, September 2025 Cariré, Sobral, Groaíras

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2025, 16:10 UTC

The fire started on 22 September 2025 in Cariré, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,936 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Ceará since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 352 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sobral · 2026 Forquilha · 2025

Burnt area: 4,936ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 22 Sept 2025 – 5 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 22 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 151; in a single hotspot: 169 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 179MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Sept5 Oct

Play back 5 Oct 2025

How it evolved, day by day

23 Sept 25 Sept 27 Sept 29 Sept 1 Oct 3 Oct 5 Oct

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

37°high

54km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,854 ha in 2020, 847 ha in 2022, 21 ha in 2024.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.1% of the area of London (49 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

Cariré 17,632 inhabitants where it started

3,350 ha reached on 23 Sept

4.4 %
Sobral

1,612 ha reached on 28 Sept

0.8 %
Groaíras 10,910 inhabitants

6 ha

0.0 %

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 2025

Built-up area0.46 ha

Residents≈ 70

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.46 hectares of built-up land and about 70 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)
22 Sept	35.5 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
23 Sept	36.6 °C	28 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
24 Sept	35.8 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
25 Sept	35.6 °C	27 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
26 Sept	35.8 °C	25 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
27 Sept	35.5 °C	25 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
28 Sept	35.7 °C	25 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
29 Sept	35.7 °C	29 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
30 Sept	36.0 °C	27 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
1 Oct	35.7 °C	31 %	47 km/h	0.5 mm	Extreme 50
2 Oct	36.0 °C	30 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
3 Oct	36.4 °C	29 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
4 Oct	35.5 °C	27 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
5 Oct	35.8 °C	29 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
6 Oct after	36.4 °C	30 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
7 Oct after	36.5 °C	29 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
8 Oct after	35.8 °C	31 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
9 Oct after	36.2 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 49
10 Oct after	37.1 °C	25 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
11 Oct after	36.8 °C	24 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
12 Oct after	36.7 °C	27 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
13 Oct after	36.0 °C	28 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
14 Oct after	36.0 °C	25 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
15 Oct after	36.0 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
16 Oct after	36.0 °C	23 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
17 Oct after	36.6 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
18 Oct after	35.6 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.7 mm	High 36
19 Oct after	36.7 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
20 Oct after	36.4 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 15 Sept 2025

After · 12 Oct 2025

Before After

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 26 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1016 µg/m³

Optical depth0.29

202122232425262728293012345678

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 · 151Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cariré fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 September 2025 and 5 October 2025: 14 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 4,936 hectares (49.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cariré (3,350 ha, 4.4 %); Sobral (1,612 ha, 0.8 %); Groaíras (6 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 ›

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 151 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.

Where it burned