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Amazon fires: NASA satellite shows smoke over Manaus as El Niño drought fuels a long burning season

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Amazon fires have pushed thick smoke over Manaus and Santarém, and NASA scientists say the region has entered the early stages of what may be a long and severe fire season. NASA’s Earth Observatory published a satellite image on 15 October 2026 showing smoke streaming from fires on both sides of the Amazon River, captured by the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite on 12 October.

Amazon fires: Smoke streams from fires along the Amazon River, seen by NASA's Aqua satellite on 12 October 2026
Smoke streams from fires along the Amazon River, seen by NASA's Aqua satellite on 12 October 2026 Photo: NASA Earth Observatory (public domain).

How Amazon fires hit Manaus

On 12 October, officials in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, reported fine particulate matter (PM2.5) above 135 micrograms per cubic metre, the second-worst level on a regional air quality index, NASA said. Schools closed and citywide events and children’s sports leagues were cancelled in the city of more than 2 million people. Brazil’s G1 reported that smoke returned on 16 October, again giving Manaus the worst air among Brazilian state capitals, and Folha de S.Paulo reported that school classes were suspended because of the smoke. AP also reported the worsening air quality. Satellites detected sharp increases in fire activity in the central and eastern Amazon starting in September.

Key Facts

  • Satellite image: NASA Aqua (MODIS), 12 Oct 2026
  • Manaus PM2.5 on 12 Oct: above 135 µg/m³
  • Manaus population: 2 million+
  • Fires expected to last until: Dec 2026-Jan 2027
  • Next wave: Roraima, northern Pará, Amapá (Nov-Dec)

“Given the intensity of this El Niño, this really is the year for people to avoid burning at all costs.”

— Douglas Morton, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

El Niño drives a cascade of fire

Douglas Morton, an Earth system scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the burning is part of a ‘cascade’ of fire in the tropics that follows the disrupted rainfall of an El Niño. It begins with drought and peat fires in Indonesia, where smoke has blanketed islands since August, and then moves to this part of the Amazon. Morton and colleagues described the pattern in a 2017 study after the 2015-2016 El Niño, and saw it again in 2023. He said many of the same forests that burned in 2015 and 2023 are burning again, and fires may burn more intensely because earlier blazes left trees charred and weakened.

What comes next for forest fires

Morton expects the fires around Santarém and Manaus to keep burning until the rainy season arrives in December 2026 or January 2027. The next wave is expected further north in November and December, in Roraima, northern Pará and Amapá, and in parts of Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname. Drought and fire risk should then peak in the southern Amazon of Brazil and Paraguay around August and September 2027. Forest fires do serious damage in these rainforests because most species are not adapted to fire. Given the strength of this El Niño, Morton said, this is the year for people to avoid burning at all costs. He called it striking and frustrating that this is happening all over again.

Why It Matters: The Amazon stores huge amounts of carbon, so repeated El Niño fires release more greenhouse gases and weaken the rainforest's ability to cool the planet.

Also on TrendDesh: El Nino 2026: NASA satellites track what may be the strongest El Nino since 1950 · COP17 biodiversity report: fewer than half of national nature targets on track, Guterres warns

Source: NASA Earth Observatory · G1 (Globo) · Folha de S.Paulo · AP News

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