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Tocantínia fire, 17 August 2026 Tocantínia

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2026, 17:20 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2026 in Tocantínia, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,540 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 400th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 233 in Brazil in 2026, of 747.

Burnt area
6,540ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
17 Aug 2026 – 23 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Aug
2026
Heat detections
125
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

17181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
49km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,511 ha in 2017, 2,852 ha in 2019, 2,166 ha in 2020, 465 ha in 2021, 644 ha in 2022, 164 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,631 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tocantínia 7,459 inhabitants where it started
    6,578 ha reached on 16 Aug
    2.5 %

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 35.7 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug 35.0 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Aug 35.7 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Aug 37.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Aug 37.8 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Aug 37.0 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Aug 35.8 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Aug 35.7 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Aug 36.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Aug 37.5 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Aug 37.8 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Aug 38.8 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Aug 37.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Aug after 38.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Aug after 37.8 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Aug after 37.6 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Aug after 37.0 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 37.2 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug after 37.8 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
30 Aug after 38.5 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug after 38.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Sept after 38.3 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept after 38.1 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2026
After · 30 Aug 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 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
Optical depth0.19
91011121314151617181920212223242526
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 · 125Every 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 Tocantínia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 August 2026 and 23 August 2026: 7 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 6,540 hectares (65.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tocantínia (6,578 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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

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.