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Paranatinga fire, 7 August 2026 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2026, 05:29 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2026 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,099 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1376th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 478 in Brazil in 2026, of 747.

Burnt area
4,099ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
7 Aug 2026 – 11 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Aug
2026
Heat detections
76
in a single hotspot: 91 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8910

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 260 ha in 2016, 2,919 ha in 2017, 74 ha in 2020, 2,888 ha in 2021, 2,700 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,822 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    4,136 ha reached on 8 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
7 Aug 34.7 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug 35.6 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug 35.6 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug 37.4 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 36.5 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Aug after 35.0 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Aug after 34.6 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Aug after 35.2 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Aug after 35.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Aug after 37.0 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Aug after 35.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Aug after 35.2 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug after 35.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug after 35.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Aug after 35.5 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2026
After · 18 Aug 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 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak50 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1050 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
567891011121314
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 · 76Every 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 Paranatinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 August 2026 and 11 August 2026: 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 4,099 hectares (41.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (4,136 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.