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JP · 2023 yearbook

Wildfires in Japan in 2023

23 fires larger than 200 hectares in Japan in 2023, with 7,364 hectares burned according to their perimeters. Here is the whole year: what the official record says, when and where it burned and what the weather was like.

Only fires of 200 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the entry totals, but they are in the GWIS yearly series.

The year in a few sentences

  1. According to Copernicus GWIS, 8,550 hectares burned in Japan in 2023: 75% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (11,341 ha).

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week was 5 March to 11 March: 3,351 hectares burned in seven days, 39% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the Minami Oguni fire, which started on 5 March 2023 and burned 541 hectares: 7% of the area of the year's 23 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
8,550 ha
Copernicus GWIS · ×0.8 the average
Fires with a page
23
7,364 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
541 ha
Minami Oguni · 5 Mar
Highest FWI
—
Not yet calculated with the current method

Map of the year

Copernicus GWIS
One circle per fire, sized by its area. Tap one to open its page.

Month by month

Hectares within the perimeters by the month the fire started. Tap a month to see it on the map.

Week by week, against other years

Copernicus GWIS

Cumulative burned area in 2023 over the lowest and highest of each week in the record since 2012, and its average. The bars below show what burned each week. Tap the chart to see a week. The average and the band are the Copernicus GWIS climatology for 2012–2025, which includes 2023 itself.

0 6,152 12k 18k Worst week · 3,351 ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2023 average 2012–2025 lowest and highest Hectares each week

Every year since 2012

Copernicus GWIS

Hectares burned per year in the official record. Tap a year to open its yearbook.

2023: 8,550 ha Average of the other years: 11,341 ha

Cite this

Markdown version

Copy the sentences with their source and link. WorldFires data are CC BY 4.0: credit WorldFires and the original source.

- According to Copernicus GWIS, 8,550 hectares burned in Japan in 2023: 75% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (11,341 ha).
- The worst week was 5 March to 11 March: 3,351 hectares burned in seven days, 39% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the Minami Oguni fire, which started on 5 March 2023 and burned 541 hectares: 7% of the area of the year's 23 fires with a page.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in Japan in 2023”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/japan/2023 (accessed 11 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires.

Fires of 2023, largest first · 23

Burned area in 2023 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 27,252 ha burned in 2023: rank 4 of 7 complete years (1 = the most burned). The average of those years is 27,647 ha.

The area the Sentinel-3 satellite sees burned each month, separate from the fire pages. It is the same source and the same method every year, so years can be compared with each other. It counts everything that burns, including crop and pasture burning, which is why it does not match the fire pages or the official statistics.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Where most burned in 2023

  1. Kumamoto 14,440 ha
  2. Shizuoka 3,406 ha
  3. Oita 2,810 ha
  4. Hokkaido 2,417 ha
  5. Tochigi 2,096 ha
  6. Ishikawa Prefecture 570 ha
  7. Fukushima 278 ha
  8. Miyagi 274 ha
  9. Nagasaki Prefecture 202 ha
  10. Hiroshima 117 ha

The whole series since 2018

Source: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, “Burnt Area 2018-present (raster 300 m), global, monthly – version 4”, monthly Sentinel-3 product, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34. Generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information; worldfires.org adds up, by country and region, the true area of the 300 m cells where a burn was detected. Latest month published: May 2026. Product page · Methodology

Sources and limits

Fire-page areas are satellite-measured perimeters and may differ from official statistics. The yearly and weekly record is the Copernicus GWIS estimate. The FWI is our own calculation from ERA5 at each fire's location: it is not an official danger warning.

Perimeters: Copernicus EFFIS and GWIS (and MTBS, NIFC or NBAC in North America). Hotspots: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS). Weather: Copernicus ERA5 via Open-Meteo. How it is calculated