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Timon fire, 27 September 2025 Timon

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2025, 16:10 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2025 in Timon, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,482 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 454th largest in Maranhão since 2016 (of 607 with a page). Number 579 in Brazil in 2025, of 714.

Burnt area
3,482ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
27 Sept 2025 – 6 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Sept
2025
Heat detections
92
in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
952MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Oct 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept6 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

272829302345

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
43km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 56 ha in 2016, 717 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Timon 174,465 inhabitants where it started
    3,505 ha reached on 27 Sept
    2.0 %

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)
27 Sept 37.3 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Sept 37.1 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Sept 37.4 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Sept 38.7 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Oct 37.8 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Oct 38.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Oct 37.3 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Oct 37.8 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Oct 38.2 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Oct 38.5 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Oct after 38.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Oct after 38.6 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Oct after 37.8 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Oct after 39.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Oct after 39.0 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Oct after 38.8 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Oct after 38.7 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Oct after 39.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Oct after 39.5 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Oct after 39.2 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Oct after 38.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Oct after 37.9 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Oct after 39.2 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Oct after 37.0 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.9 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Sept 2025
After · 13 Oct 2025

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 6 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak57 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1058 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
252627282930123456789
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 · 92Every 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 Timon fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2025 and 6 October 2025: 10 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 3,482 hectares (34.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Timon (3,505 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.