Paranatinga fire, 6 August 2026 Paranatinga
The fire started on 6 August 2026 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,506 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 159th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 18 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.
- Burnt area
- 23,506ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 6 Aug 2026 – 18 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 6 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 565
- in a single hotspot: 227 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.9GW
- 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 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 46 ha in 2017, 610 ha in 2020, 13,912 ha in 2021, 962 ha in 2022, 32 ha in 2023, 1,240 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,332 ha that had burned before.
- 10,869 ha Paranatinga fire, August 2021 13,348 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,280 ha Paranatinga fire, September 2021 5,941 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,106 ha Paranatinga fire, September 2024 3,904 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 962 ha Paranatinga fire, September 2022 6,954 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 134 ha Paranatinga fire, September 2024 5,984 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 111 ha Paranatinga fire, August 2020 4,880 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 46 ha Paranatinga fire, September 2017 5,188 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
23,697 ha reached on 6 Aug1.0 %
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 Aug | 34.5 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Aug | 34.8 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 8 Aug | 35.8 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Aug | 36.0 °C | 24 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Aug | 37.8 °C | 18 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Aug | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Aug | 35.5 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 13 Aug | 35.0 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Aug | 35.2 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 15 Aug | 36.2 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Aug | 37.5 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 17 Aug | 36.0 °C | 20 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 18 Aug | 35.5 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Aug after | 36.0 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Aug after | 36.2 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Aug after | 35.8 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 22 Aug after | 36.5 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 23 Aug after | 37.2 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 24 Aug after | 37.1 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Aug after | 38.2 °C | 18 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Aug after | 37.2 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 Aug after | 37.2 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 28 Aug after | 37.0 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
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 15 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily 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 · 565Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,348 haParanatinga13 August 2021 · 20 days · 1 km away
- 6,954 haParanatinga3 September 2022 · 8 days · 15 km away
- 15,308 haParanatinga22 August 2017 · 9 days · 24 km away
- 7,168 haParanatinga18 August 2024 · 6 days · 24 km away
- 17,011 haParanatinga12 August 2026 · 13 days · 26 km away
- 7,902 haParanatinga11 August 2021 · 13 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Paranatinga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 August 2026 and 18 August 2026: 13 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 23,506 hectares (235.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Paranatinga (23,697 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.