Delfinópolis fire, April 2026 Delfinópolis, São Roque de Minas, Sacramento
The fire started on 22 April 2026 in Delfinópolis, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,689 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 83th largest in Minas Gerais since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 386 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,689ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 22 Apr 2026 – 27 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 22 Apr
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 106
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Danger at start
- 10
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 64MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,341 ha in 2016, 1,748 ha in 2018, 2,591 ha in 2020, 1,261 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,327 ha that had burned before.
- 3,341 ha São Roque de Minas fire, August 2016 20,192 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,567 ha Delfinópolis fire, August 2020 6,614 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,748 ha Sacramento fire, August 2018 10,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
2,546 ha reached on 23 Apr1.8 %
-
São Roque de Minas 7,129 inhabitants1,407 ha reached on 23 Apr0.7 %
-
Sacramento 26,670 inhabitants758 ha reached on 23 Apr0.2 %
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 Apr | 27.9 °C | 47 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 23 Apr | 26.7 °C | 48 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 24 Apr | 25.6 °C | 48 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 25 Apr | 27.2 °C | 40 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 26 Apr | 27.6 °C | 45 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 27 Apr | 28.3 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 28 Apr after | 28.0 °C | 47 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 29 Apr after | 27.4 °C | 50 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 30 Apr after | 27.3 °C | 45 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 1 May after | 26.1 °C | 45 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 2 May after | 26.8 °C | 45 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 3 May after | 26.1 °C | 48 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 4 May after | 26.3 °C | 48 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 5 May after | 27.0 °C | 44 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 6 May after | 26.6 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 7 May after | 26.5 °C | 47 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
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 25 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 13 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 · 106Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,614 haDelfinópolisAugust 2020 · 4 days · 1 km away
- 10,061 haSacramentoAugust 2018 · 3 days · 4 km away
- 20,192 haSão Roque de MinasAugust 2016 · 11 days · 5 km away
- 5,803 haSão Roque de MinasAugust 2020 · 4 days · 12 km away
- 5,592 haDelfinópolisSeptember 2024 · 5 days · 18 km away
- 3,806 haIbiraciAugust 2024 · 7 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Delfinópolis fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 April 2026 and 27 April 2026: 6 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 4,689 hectares (46.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Delfinópolis (2,546 ha, 1.8 %); São Roque de Minas (1,407 ha, 0.7 %); Sacramento (758 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.3 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
- 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
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. 106 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.
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.