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São Félix do Coribe fire, September 2026 São Félix do Coribe, Serra do Ramalho

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2026, 04:17 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2026 in São Félix do Coribe, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,416 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 219th largest in Bahia since 2016 (of 467 with a page). Number 307 in Brazil in 2026, of 769.

Compare with…

Suggestions: São Félix do Coribe · 2021Serra do Ramalho · 2025Santana · 2022Bom Jesus da Lapa · 2019

Burnt area
5,416ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
30 Sept 2026 – 15 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
30 Sept
2026
Heat detections
222
in a single hotspot: 156 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
364MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept15 Oct
15 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

30 Sept 2026 · 414 MW · 10 1 Oct 2026 · 61 MW · 4 2 Oct 2026 · 457 MW · 25 6 Oct 2026 · 397 MW · 13 7 Oct 2026 · 226 MW · 15 8 Oct 2026 · 483 MW · 12 9 Oct 2026 · 281 MW · 15 10 Oct 2026 · 735 MW · 76 11 Oct 2026 · 537 MW · 28 12 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 13 Oct 2026 · 69 MW · 8 14 Oct 2026 · 341 MW · 16 15 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0
30 Sept 2 Oct 7 Oct 9 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 13 Oct 15 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
44km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.9 mm on 18 Oct.

This area had burned before

54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,445 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,910 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.4% of the area of London (54 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. São Félix do Coribe 15,194 inhabitants where it started
    2,984 ha reached on 30 Sept
    1.7 %
  2. Serra do Ramalho 34,222 inhabitants
    2,461 ha reached on 1 Oct
    1.0 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
30 Sept 39.6 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Oct 40.5 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Oct 40.0 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Oct 34.5 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
4 Oct 35.9 °C 30 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm High 31
5 Oct 37.6 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Oct 37.6 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Oct 37.2 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Oct 38.0 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Oct 38.7 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Oct 39.1 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Oct 38.3 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Oct 38.4 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Oct 37.9 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Oct 38.6 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Oct 35.3 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
16 Oct after 36.0 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
17 Oct after 38.1 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 40
18 Oct after 33.7 °C 44 % 32 km/h 4.9 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2026
After · 22 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 11 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 70 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak70 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1072 µg/m³
Optical depth1.10
282930123456789101112131415161718
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 · 222Every 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 São Félix do Coribe fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 September 2026 to 15 October 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 October 2026 to 14 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,416 hectares (54.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: São Félix do Coribe (2,984 ha, 1.7 %); Serra do Ramalho (2,461 ha, 1.0 %).
Is the São Félix do Coribe fire still active?
No fire detections since 15 Oct 2026, 04:17 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 44 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 7 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Name: Serra do Ramalho → São Félix do Coribe.
  2. Name: São Félix do Coribe → Serra do Ramalho.
  3. Name: Serra do Ramalho → São Félix do Coribe.
  4. Name: São Félix do Coribe → Serra do Ramalho.
  5. Name: Serra do Ramalho → São Félix do Coribe.
  6. Name: São Félix do Coribe → Serra do Ramalho.
  7. Name: Serra do Ramalho → São Félix do Coribe.

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
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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.

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 6 October 2026 to 14 October 2026. 222 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • 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.