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Cláudia fire, August 2026 Cláudia, Itaúba

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2026, 17:52 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2026 in Cláudia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,702 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1165th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 381 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.

Burnt area
4,702ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
18 Aug 2026 – 2 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
18 Aug
2026
Heat detections
295
in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242627282930311

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
37km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,560 ha in 2020, 4,142 ha in 2022, 365 ha in 2023, 5,504 ha in 2024, 3,143 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,448 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cláudia 9,593 inhabitants where it started
    2,412 ha reached on 18 Aug
    0.6 %
  2. Itaúba 5,020 inhabitants
    2,317 ha reached on 20 Aug
    0.5 %

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)
18 Aug 36.5 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Aug 36.7 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Aug 37.1 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug 36.4 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug 37.0 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Aug 36.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug 36.8 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Aug 37.6 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Aug 37.8 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Aug 37.0 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug 36.2 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug 37.8 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Aug 38.0 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Aug 38.5 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Sept 37.7 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Sept 34.3 °C 44 % 21 km/h 4.0 mm Low 8
3 Sept after 35.7 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Sept after 35.6 °C 40 % 29 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2026
After · 9 Sept 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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 117 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 69: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak117 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10118 µg/m³
Optical depth0.57
1617181920212223242526272829303112345
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 · 295Every 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 Cláudia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2026 and 2 September 2026: 16 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 4,702 hectares (47.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cláudia (2,412 ha, 0.6 %); Itaúba (2,317 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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

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
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.

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.