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Paranatinga fire, September 2026 Paranatinga

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2026, 17:52 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2026 in Paranatinga, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,251 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 700th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 200 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.

Burnt area
7,251ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
20 Sept 2026 – 1 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Sept
2026
Heat detections
203
in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Oct 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept1 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

20212225272829301

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 21.4 mm on 2 Oct.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,320 ha in 2017, 891 ha in 2019, 5,408 ha in 2020, 1,612 ha in 2022, 6,874 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,173 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Paranatinga 26,423 inhabitants where it started
    7,279 ha
    0.3 %

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)
20 Sept 38.7 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Sept 36.9 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Sept 36.8 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.5 mm High 34
23 Sept 35.2 °C 39 % 24 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 13
24 Sept 37.2 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.6 mm High 27
25 Sept 37.7 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Sept 36.0 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Sept 37.0 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
28 Sept 41.0 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Sept 34.2 °C 49 % 36 km/h 2.8 mm Moderate 12
30 Sept 34.7 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
1 Oct 37.5 °C 30 % 19 km/h 1.1 mm High 24
2 Oct after 24.3 °C 82 % 19 km/h 21.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Sept 2026
After · 8 Oct 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 22 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10111 µg/m³
Optical depth1.04
181920212223242526272829301
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 · 203Every 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 20 September 2026 and 1 October 2026: 12 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 7,251 hectares (72.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paranatinga (7,279 ha, 0.3 %).
Is the Paranatinga fire still active?
No fire detections since 1 Oct 2026, 17:52 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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

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
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.

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.