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Cocos fire, 22 August 2025 Cocos

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2025, 16:57 UTC

The fire started on 22 August 2025 in Cocos, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,061 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 235th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 466 with a page). Number 338 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.

Burnt area
5,061ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
22 Aug 2025 – 25 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Aug
2025
Heat detections
156
in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
38km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,570 ha in 2021, 445 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Cocos 19,151 inhabitants where it started
    5,096 ha reached on 22 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)
22 Aug 31.9 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Aug 31.2 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Aug 31.5 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Aug 31.8 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Aug after 32.2 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Aug after 32.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Aug after 32.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug after 31.8 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Aug after 31.2 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug after 31.5 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Sept after 30.7 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Sept after 28.7 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Sept after 27.2 °C 39 % 52 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 43
4 Sept after 29.5 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Sept after 30.8 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2025
After · 1 Sept 2025

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

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1017 µg/m³
Optical depth0.25
20212223242526272829
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 · 156Every 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 Cocos fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 August 2025 and 25 August 2025: 4 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 5,061 hectares (50.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cocos (5,096 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.