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Forquilha fire, September 2025 Forquilha, Groaíras, Sobral

Out · last detection 3 Oct 2025, 16:48 UTC

The fire started on 15 September 2025 in Forquilha, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,577 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Ceará since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 550 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cariré · 2025Sobral · 2026

Burnt area
3,577ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
15 Sept 2025 – 3 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
15 Sept
2025
Heat detections
229
in a single hotspot: 197 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
106MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Sept3 Oct
3 Oct 2025

How it evolved, day by day

15 Sept 2025 · 5 MW · 1 16 Sept 2025 · 3 MW · 1 17 Sept 2025 · 99 MW · 19 18 Sept 2025 · 109 MW · 22 19 Sept 2025 · 67 MW · 15 20 Sept 2025 · 77 MW · 14 22 Sept 2025 · 10 MW · 5 23 Sept 2025 · 109 MW · 21 24 Sept 2025 · 728 MW · 30 25 Sept 2025 · 196 MW · 22 26 Sept 2025 · 142 MW · 16 27 Sept 2025 · 85 MW · 18 28 Sept 2025 · 46 MW · 10 29 Sept 2025 · 71 MW · 12 30 Sept 2025 · 88 MW · 12 1 Oct 2025 · 12 MW · 2 2 Oct 2025 · 29 MW · 5 3 Oct 2025 · 28 MW · 4
15 Sept 18 Sept 22 Sept 24 Sept 25 Sept 28 Sept 1 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

36°high
49km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,192 ha in 2016, 2,214 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,040 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 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. Forquilha 203,023 inhabitants where it started
    2,295 ha reached on 15 Sept
    4.0 %
  2. Groaíras 10,910 inhabitants
    703 ha reached on 28 Sept
    4.5 %
  3. Sobral
    602 ha reached on 17 Sept
    0.3 %

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 area4.5 ha
Residents≈ 500

Inside the perimeter there were about 4.5 hectares of built-up land and about 500 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)
15 Sept 35.5 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Sept 35.7 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Sept 35.9 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Sept 36.0 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Sept 36.3 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Sept 36.2 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Sept 35.8 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Sept 35.3 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Sept 36.4 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Sept 35.5 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Sept 35.5 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Sept 35.7 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
27 Sept 35.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Sept 35.6 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Sept 35.6 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 Sept 35.9 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Oct 35.6 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Oct 36.0 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Oct 36.3 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Oct after 35.4 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Oct after 35.7 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Oct after 36.2 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Oct after 36.4 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Oct after 35.2 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Oct after 36.0 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Oct after 36.8 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Oct after 36.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Oct after 36.5 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Oct after 35.8 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Sept 2025
After · 10 Oct 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 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 depth0.33
13141516171819202122232425262728293012345
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 · 229Every 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 Forquilha fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 September 2025 to 3 October 2025 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 September 2025 to 2 October 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,577 hectares (35.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Forquilha (2,295 ha, 4.0 %); Groaíras (703 ha, 4.5 %); Sobral (602 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 2 October 2025 → 3 October 2025.

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 15 September 2025 to 2 October 2025. 229 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.