Mateiros fire, 13 September 2025 Mateiros
The fire started on 13 September 2025 in Mateiros, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,423 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 272th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 151 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.
- Burnt area
- 8,423ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 13 Sept 2025 – 17 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 131
- in a single hotspot: 198 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.0GW
- sum of detected power
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,187 ha in 2017, 724 ha in 2019, 1,222 ha in 2020, 9 ha in 2022, 3,712 ha in 2023, 92 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,120 ha that had burned before.
- 1,222 ha Mateiros fire, September 2020 8,196 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,050 ha Mateiros fire, June 2023 4,824 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9 ha Mateiros fire, September 2022 5,016 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
8,477 ha reached on 13 Sept0.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Sept | 34.0 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Sept | 35.6 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 15 Sept | 34.9 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 16 Sept | 34.8 °C | 20 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 17 Sept | 35.8 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 18 Sept after | 35.9 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 19 Sept after | 32.5 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Sept after | 32.9 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 Sept after | 32.8 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Sept after | 33.7 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 20 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 26 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 21 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 27 Sept after | 33.3 °C | 22 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 28 Sept after | 34.4 °C | 16 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 29 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 30 Sept after | 35.7 °C | 15 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
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 17 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 35 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 · 131Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mateiros fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 September 2025 and 17 September 2025: 5 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 8,423 hectares (84.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mateiros (8,477 ha, 0.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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
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.