How long did the Tocantinópolis fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2026 and 27 September 2026: 11 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 5,901 hectares (59.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Tocantinópolis (5,939 ha, 5.4 %).

Is the Tocantinópolis fire still active?

No fire detections since 27 Sept 2026, 16:26 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

BR · Brazil · 2026-09-17 → 2026-09-27

Tocantinópolis fire, 17 September 2026 Tocantinópolis

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2026, 16:26 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2026 in Tocantinópolis, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,901 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 473th largest in Tocantins since 2016 (of 1242 with a page). Number 264 in Brazil in 2026, of 747.

Burnt area: 5,901ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 17 Sept 2026 – 27 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 17 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 106; in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 27 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept27 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

18192021222427

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

36km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,048 ha in 2016, 88 ha in 2017, 653 ha in 2018, 1,055 ha in 2019, 629 ha in 2021, 1,884 ha in 2022, 1,529 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,653 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Tocantinópolis 22,615 inhabitants where it started

5,939 ha reached on 18 Sept

5.4 %

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)
17 Sept	36.3 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
18 Sept	37.2 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
19 Sept	37.5 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 Sept	35.0 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	High 36
21 Sept	37.1 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
22 Sept	37.2 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Sept	37.2 °C	36 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
24 Sept	37.3 °C	37 %	24 km/h	0.4 mm	High 33
25 Sept	33.8 °C	45 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
26 Sept	35.6 °C	39 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
27 Sept	35.8 °C	41 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
28 Sept after	36.2 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 34
29 Sept after	37.0 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
30 Sept after	36.9 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Oct after	35.8 °C	44 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	High 35
2 Oct after	35.5 °C	39 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Sept 2026

After · 4 Oct 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 22 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1042 µg/m³

Optical depth0.57

WHO 15

15161718192021222324252627282930

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 · 106Every 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 Tocantinópolis fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2026 and 27 September 2026: 11 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 5,901 hectares (59.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Tocantinópolis (5,939 ha, 5.4 %).
Is the Tocantinópolis fire still active?: No fire detections since 27 Sept 2026, 16:26 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

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.

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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?

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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.

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