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Itacajá fire, August 2026 Itacajá

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2026, 05:10 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2026 in Itacajá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,237 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1108th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 679 in Brazil in 2026, of 747.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.2 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
3,237ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
19 Aug 2026 – 27 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Aug
2026
Heat detections
33
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
171MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

222324252627

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
35km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.7 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 170 ha in 2016, 2,026 ha in 2017, 1,735 ha in 2019, 911 ha in 2020, 801 ha in 2022, 977 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,205 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Itacajá 6,819 inhabitants where it started
    3,259 ha reached on 22 Aug
    1.1 %

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)
21 Aug 37.3 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug 38.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug 37.5 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug 38.5 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 38.2 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Aug 37.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Aug 36.1 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug after 36.7 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug after 37.8 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug after 37.2 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug after 38.7 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Sept after 37.6 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept after 37.4 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Sept after 36.5 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
4 Sept after 29.2 °C 70 % 30 km/h 10.7 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2026
After · 3 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 26 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1028 µg/m³
Optical depth0.29
192021222324252627282930
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 · 33Every 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 Itacajá fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2026 to 27 August 2026 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 August 2026 to 27 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,237 hectares (32.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Itacajá (3,259 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

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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.