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Uruçuí fire, 30 August 2026 Uruçuí, Sebastião Leal

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2026, 16:56 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2026 in Uruçuí, Brazil, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,437 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 126th largest in Piaui since 2016 (of 803 with a page). Number 129 in Brazil in 2026, of 747.

Burnt area
9,437ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
30 Aug 2026 – 5 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2026
Heat detections
177
in a single hotspot: 212 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug5 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

30311234

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,474 ha in 2016, 3,893 ha in 2017, 1,967 ha in 2019, 2,226 ha in 2020, 2,094 ha in 2021, 2,656 ha in 2023, 47 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,373 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Uruçuí 25,203 inhabitants where it started
    6,715 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.8 %
  2. Sebastião Leal 4,446 inhabitants
    2,787 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.9 %

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)
30 Aug 35.8 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
31 Aug 35.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Sept 35.2 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept 36.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Sept 35.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept 34.0 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Sept 34.3 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Sept after 33.8 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Sept after 34.9 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Sept after 34.2 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Sept after 34.7 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Sept after 33.8 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Sept after 34.0 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Sept after 34.9 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Sept after 36.5 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Sept after 36.0 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Sept after 35.8 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2026
After · 12 Sept 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 2 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1057 µg/m³
Optical depth0.60
2829303112345678
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 · 177Every 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 Uruçuí fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2026 and 5 September 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 9,437 hectares (94.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Uruçuí (6,715 ha, 0.8 %); Sebastião Leal (2,787 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.