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BR · Brazil · –

Medicilândia fire, 13 October 2026 Medicilândia

Burning · last detection 15 Nov 2026, 04:31 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2026 in Medicilândia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,048 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 265 in Brazil in 2026, of 798.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Uruará · 2026Prainha · 2024

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 15 Nov 2026, 04:31 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Burnt area
6,048ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
13 Oct 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Oct
2026
Heat detections
369
in a single hotspot: 139 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
107MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct15 Nov
15 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

13 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 14 Oct 2026 · 5 MW · 6 15 Oct 2026 · 15 MW · 13 16 Oct 2026 · 58 MW · 5 17 Oct 2026 · 2 MW · 2 18 Oct 2026 · 3 MW · 3 19 Oct 2026 · 20 MW · 18 20 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 21 Oct 2026 · 1 MW · 2 22 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 23 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 24 Oct 2026 · 32 MW · 19 25 Oct 2026 · 65 MW · 29 26 Oct 2026 · 39 MW · 3 27 Oct 2026 · 1,463 MW · 30 28 Oct 2026 · 317 MW · 61 29 Oct 2026 · 507 MW · 74 30 Oct 2026 · 33 MW · 28 31 Oct 2026 · 50 MW · 11 1 Nov 2026 · 12 MW · 2 2 Nov 2026 · 139 MW · 10 3 Nov 2026 · 57 MW · 11 4 Nov 2026 · 21 MW · 5 5 Nov 2026 · 6 MW · 5 6 Nov 2026 · 30 MW · 8 7 Nov 2026 · 2 MW · 1 8 Nov 2026 · 31 MW · 4 9 Nov 2026 · 27 MW · 2 10 Nov 2026 · 3 MW · 2 11 Nov 2026 · 11 MW · 8 12 Nov 2026 · 32 MW · 5 13 Nov 2026 · 16 MW · 2 14 Nov 2026 · 0 MW · 0 15 Nov 2026 · 0 MW · 0
13 Oct 20 Oct 27 Oct 3 Nov 10 Nov

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

Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (99 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

39°high
40km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,998 ha in 2018, 1,088 ha in 2019, 1,223 ha in 2020, 2,878 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,907 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 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. Medicilândia 24,718 inhabitants where it started
    6,087 ha reached on 13 Oct
    0.7 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
13 Oct 36.4 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Oct 35.5 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
15 Oct 35.9 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Oct 36.4 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Oct 36.5 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.9 mm High 33
18 Oct 36.0 °C 39 % 30 km/h 1.6 mm High 28
19 Oct 35.9 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm High 23
20 Oct 35.8 °C 40 % 31 km/h 1.7 mm High 27
21 Oct 35.6 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
22 Oct 36.7 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
23 Oct 36.6 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
24 Oct 37.5 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Oct 37.1 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Oct 35.7 °C 40 % 33 km/h 5.0 mm Moderate 12
27 Oct 37.3 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
28 Oct 38.6 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Oct 36.6 °C 38 % 40 km/h 4.1 mm Moderate 18
30 Oct 34.9 °C 44 % 39 km/h 4.2 mm High 23
31 Oct 34.9 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
1 Nov 36.0 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Nov 36.3 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
3 Nov 35.7 °C 40 % 37 km/h 1.5 mm High 30
4 Nov 35.2 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
5 Nov 35.8 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
6 Nov 35.1 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
7 Nov 34.8 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm High 29
8 Nov 35.5 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
9 Nov 36.0 °C 39 % 31 km/h 5.2 mm High 30
10 Nov 32.3 °C 52 % 34 km/h 4.9 mm Low 7
11 Nov 36.0 °C 37 % 39 km/h 2.3 mm Low 10
12 Nov 35.4 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
13 Nov 35.3 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
14 Nov 36.2 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Oct 2026
After · 14 Nov 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 18 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 250 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 71: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak250 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10252 µg/m³
Optical depth1.78
11 Oct16 Oct21 Oct26 Oct31 Oct
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 · 369Every 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 Medicilândia fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 October 2026 to 15 November 2026 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 October 2026 to 14 November 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,048 hectares (60.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Medicilândia (6,087 ha, 0.7 %).
Is the Medicilândia fire still active?
Yes: satellites detected fire on 15 Nov 2026, 04:31 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 3 November 2026.
  1. Area: 5,883 → 6,048 ha.
  2. Page published (5,883 ha).

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 13 October 2026 to 14 November 2026. 369 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
  • 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.