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Itacajá fire, September 2026 Itacajá

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2026, 17:28 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2026 in Itacajá, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,131 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 779th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 467 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.

Burnt area
4,131ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
8 Sept 2026 – 13 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Sept
2026
Heat detections
73
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
950MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

910111213

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
45km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.6 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,333 ha in 2017, 36 ha in 2019, 2,797 ha in 2020, 2,117 ha in 2022, 2,344 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,017 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Itacajá 6,819 inhabitants where it started
    4,159 ha reached on 9 Sept
    1.4 %

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)
8 Sept 36.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 1.9 mm High 23
9 Sept 37.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Sept 37.3 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Sept 37.6 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept 38.2 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Sept 38.4 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept after 37.5 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Sept after 38.1 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept after 39.8 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Sept after 38.3 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Sept after 37.8 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Sept after 37.7 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Sept after 36.3 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Sept after 38.0 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Sept after 37.5 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept after 38.6 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Sept after 37.5 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 40
25 Sept after 28.2 °C 73 % 23 km/h 5.6 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2026
After · 20 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 13 September 2026 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
PM1016 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
678910111213141516
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 · 73Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 September 2026 and 13 September 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 4,131 hectares (41.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Itacajá (4,159 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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

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
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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.