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Portel fire, 13 October 2026 Portel, Pacajá

Dying down · last detection 3 Nov 2026, 16:52 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2026 in Portel, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,335 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 184th largest in Pará since 2016 (of 1114 with a page). Number 91 in Brazil in 2026, of 783.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Portel · 2024Portel · 2020Portel · 2018Portel · 2022

Is it still active?

No detections since 3 Nov 2026, 16:52 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. 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
12,335ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
13 Oct 2026 – 3 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
13 Oct
2026
Heat detections
894
in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
422MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct3 Nov
3 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

13 Oct 2026 · 5 MW · 1 14 Oct 2026 · 2 MW · 1 15 Oct 2026 · 29 MW · 5 16 Oct 2026 · 40 MW · 3 17 Oct 2026 · 28 MW · 3 18 Oct 2026 · 3 MW · 2 19 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 21 Oct 2026 · 598 MW · 40 22 Oct 2026 · 664 MW · 78 23 Oct 2026 · 222 MW · 61 24 Oct 2026 · 264 MW · 63 25 Oct 2026 · 359 MW · 88 26 Oct 2026 · 1,607 MW · 99 27 Oct 2026 · 1,887 MW · 148 28 Oct 2026 · 304 MW · 78 29 Oct 2026 · 253 MW · 25 30 Oct 2026 · 55 MW · 6 31 Oct 2026 · 380 MW · 64 1 Nov 2026 · 1,149 MW · 87 2 Nov 2026 · 171 MW · 42 3 Nov 2026 · 0 MW · 0
13 Oct 16 Oct 19 Oct 23 Oct 26 Oct 27 Oct 29 Oct 1 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
38km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 201 ha in 2016, 53 ha in 2018, 430 ha in 2019, 294 ha in 2020, 1,245 ha in 2022, 383 ha in 2023, 1,198 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,217 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.8% of the area of London (123 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. Portel 62,503 inhabitants where it started
    6,394 ha reached on 13 Oct
    0.2 %
  2. Pacajá 41,097 inhabitants
    6,025 ha reached on 14 Oct
    0.5 %

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 area0.14 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.14 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (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 33.5 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
14 Oct 33.7 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Oct 34.1 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Oct 34.3 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
17 Oct 33.5 °C 54 % 29 km/h 3.6 mm Low 6
18 Oct 33.3 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 12
19 Oct 33.7 °C 49 % 27 km/h 3.4 mm Low 6
20 Oct 33.6 °C 49 % 27 km/h 1.7 mm Low 8
21 Oct 33.4 °C 47 % 38 km/h 2.7 mm Low 9
22 Oct 33.5 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 17
23 Oct 34.4 °C 46 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
24 Oct 34.1 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 18
25 Oct 33.6 °C 52 % 31 km/h 1.9 mm Low 10
26 Oct 34.9 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
27 Oct 34.8 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
28 Oct 35.1 °C 46 % 24 km/h 3.2 mm Low 7
29 Oct 32.4 °C 53 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
30 Oct 34.1 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 18
31 Oct 35.1 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Nov 34.0 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 17
2 Nov 34.3 °C 48 % 30 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 15
3 Nov 34.0 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Oct 2026
After · 3 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 16 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1073 µg/m³
Optical depth1.01
131415161718192021222324
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 · 894Every 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 Portel fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 October 2026 to 3 November 2026 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 October 2026 to 3 November 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,335 hectares (123.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Portel (6,394 ha, 0.2 %); Pacajá (6,025 ha, 0.5 %).
Is the Portel fire still active?
No fire detections since 3 Nov 2026, 16:52 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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 · 14 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 11,784 → 12,201 ha.
  2. Area: 9,261 → 11,784 ha.
  3. Area: 8,925 → 9,261 ha.
  4. Area: 8,592 → 8,925 ha.
  5. Area: 8,376 → 8,592 ha.
  6. Area: 8,195 → 8,376 ha.
  7. Area: 4,188 → 8,195 ha.
  8. Start date: 15 October 2026 → 13 October 2026.
  9. Mapped perimeter arrives: from ≈ 3,066 ha estimated from hotspots to 4,188 ha.
  10. Start date: 16 October 2026 → 15 October 2026.
  11. Area: ≈ 3,360 → ≈ 3,066 ha.
  12. Start date: 15 October 2026 → 16 October 2026.
  13. Area: ≈ 3,262 → ≈ 3,360 ha.
  14. Start date: 14 October 2026 → 15 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 20 October 2026 to 3 November 2026. 894 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.