How long did the Ibarra fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2026 and 13 September 2026: 8 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 1,644 hectares (16.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ibarra (1,490 ha, 1.3 %); San Miguel de Urcuquí (164 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 26.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ecuador (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

EC · Ecuador · 2026-09-06 → 2026-09-13

Ibarra fire, 6 September 2026 Ibarra, San Miguel de Urcuquí

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2026, 06:50 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2026 in Ibarra, Ecuador, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,644 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 4 in Ecuador in 2026, of 13.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,644ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 6 Sept 2026 – 13 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; cantons
Started on: 6 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 27; in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 86MW; sum of detected power

Play back 12 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6891012

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

The weather it burned in

26°high

42km/h · peak gust

31%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Ibarra where it started

1,490 ha reached on 6 Sept

1.3 %
San Miguel de Urcuquí

164 ha reached on 8 Sept

0.2 %

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)
6 Sept	22.8 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
7 Sept	21.9 °C	40 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
8 Sept	24.0 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
9 Sept	21.5 °C	45 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
10 Sept	25.0 °C	34 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
11 Sept	23.5 °C	38 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
12 Sept	26.4 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
13 Sept	26.3 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
14 Sept after	24.0 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Sept after	21.9 °C	44 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
16 Sept after	24.7 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
17 Sept after	26.0 °C	31 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
18 Sept after	24.5 °C	38 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
19 Sept after	24.4 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
20 Sept after	25.9 °C	35 %	44 km/h	0.3 mm	High 28
21 Sept after	22.4 °C	46 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
22 Sept after	21.1 °C	49 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
23 Sept after	21.2 °C	54 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
24 Sept after	19.9 °C	55 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
25 Sept after	20.3 °C	61 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
26 Sept after	20.1 °C	61 %	35 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 17
27 Sept after	20.0 °C	57 %	31 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Aug 2026

After · 20 Sept 2026

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 13 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1016 µg/m³

Optical depth0.44

WHO 15

4567891011121314151617181920

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 · 27Every 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 Ecuador ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ibarra fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2026 and 13 September 2026: 8 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 1,644 hectares (16.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ibarra (1,490 ha, 1.3 %); San Miguel de Urcuquí (164 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 26.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ecuador (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: 911

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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