NASA documents active wildfires spreading across the Amazon, agency says

NASA Science published satellite imagery and a NASA+ video showing active wildfires spreading across the Amazon rainforest, the agency reported. NASA said the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Aqua satellite captured smoke streaming from fires on both sides of the Amazon River on October 12, 2026.

The agency placed the images and an explanatory item on its Earth Science pages and released a NASA+ video to document and monitor the fires. NASA linked the satellite observations to visible impacts on cities downwind of the smoke.

The agency wrote that heavy smoke “socked in” Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, and that city officials recorded extremely poor air quality that day with PM2.5 readings above 135 micrograms per cubic meter. NASA said that the air-quality deterioration disrupted daily life in Manaus, a city of more than 2 million residents.

The images NASA published show broad plumes of smoke extending across both banks of the Amazon River, and the agency highlighted the role of its Aqua satellite’s MODIS instrument in detecting those plumes. NASA presented the imagery as part of ongoing Earth Science coverage and accompanied the images with a NASA+ video intended to monitor the fires and the smoke’s extent.

In its Earth Science commentary, NASA compared the observed pattern of smoke with past events, noting similarity with earlier burn episodes during El Niño conditions, and included expert comment that the same forests that burned in prior El Niño years are burning again.

The agency did not provide comprehensive counts of fires, area burned, or casualty figures in the item it posted. Other outlets mirrored NASA’s reporting in headline form: Mirage News ran a headline stating that fires have arrived in the Amazon rainforest.

Those headlines corroborate that multiple publishers highlighted the NASA release, but the primary, detailed account and the imagery come from NASA Science’s Earth Observatory item and the accompanying NASA+ video.

For readers tracking atmospheric and public-health impacts, NASA’s reporting supplies satellite confirmation of wide smoke plumes crossing the river basin and documents a reported spike in PM2.5 in Manaus on the October 12, 2026 observation date. The agency framed the release as monitoring and documenting the active fires and their immediate air-quality effects.