How long did the Poxoréu fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2026 and 1 September 2026: 15 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 5,186 hectares (51.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Poxoréu (5,209 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2026-08-18 → 2026-09-01

Poxoréu fire, August 2026 Poxoréu

Out · last detection 31 Aug 2026, 18:11 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2026 in Poxoréu, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,186 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1031th largest in Mato Grosso since 2016 (of 1996 with a page). Number 330 in Brazil in 2026, of 749.

Burnt area: 5,186ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 18 Aug 2026 – 1 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 18 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 95; in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start: 49; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 976MW; sum of detected power

Play back 31 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1820212223242527283031

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

48km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,446 ha in 2016, 1,713 ha in 2017, 1,513 ha in 2019, 2,138 ha in 2020, 1,165 ha in 2022, 3,592 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,623 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Poxoréu 23,283 inhabitants where it started

5,209 ha reached on 18 Aug

0.8 %

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)
11 Aug	36.5 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
12 Aug	34.5 °C	17 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
13 Aug	34.3 °C	18 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
14 Aug	34.8 °C	19 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
15 Aug	35.7 °C	18 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
16 Aug	36.1 °C	17 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
17 Aug	35.3 °C	19 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
18 Aug	34.8 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
19 Aug	34.8 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
20 Aug	34.7 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
21 Aug	33.1 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
22 Aug	34.5 °C	24 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
23 Aug	36.5 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
24 Aug	35.6 °C	16 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
25 Aug	37.6 °C	15 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
26 Aug	36.0 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
27 Aug	36.5 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
28 Aug	36.6 °C	22 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
29 Aug	36.6 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
30 Aug	38.3 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
31 Aug	37.8 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
1 Sept	37.3 °C	25 %	48 km/h	0.1 mm	Extreme 55
2 Sept after	34.6 °C	34 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Sept after	36.2 °C	30 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Sept after	37.0 °C	28 %	36 km/h	1.0 mm	High 36

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Aug 2026

After · 8 Sept 2026

Before After

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 26 August 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 guideline9 days

PM1075 µg/m³

Optical depth0.80

WHO 15

9101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234

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 · 95Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Brazil ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Poxoréu fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2026 and 1 September 2026: 15 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 5,186 hectares (51.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Poxoréu (5,209 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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

INPE · Programa Queimadas ↗
IBAMA · Prevfogo ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned