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JP · 2026 yearbook

Wildfires in Japan in 2026

58 fires larger than 200 hectares in Japan in 2026, with 32,159 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.

These figures leave out 2 provisional pages, seen only as heat detections and still without a perimeter; one page with faulty data, under review. They appear in the lists, marked.

Year in progress: the figures change every day until the year closes and are not compared with complete years.

Series not comparable from October 2025 onwards: GWIS changed its near-real-time perimeters.

The year in a few sentences

  1. Up to 4 November, Copernicus GWIS counts 16,016 hectares burned in Japan in 2026: 1.4 times the average for the same weeks from 2012 to 2025 (11,337 ha). GWIS estimates for the current year are provisional and may change.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week so far was 5 March to 11 March: 4,815 hectares burned in seven days, 30% of the year to date according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the Aso fire, which started on 8 March 2026 and burned 3,037 hectares: 9% of the area of the year's 58 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

  4. The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 27 July 2026: a Fire Weather Index of 16 (moderate on the EFFIS scale) at the Geisei fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

    WorldFires · ERA5 · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
16k ha
Copernicus GWIS · up to 4 Nov
Fires with a page
58
32,159 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
3,037 ha
Aso · 8 Mar
Highest FWI
16 Moderate
27 Jul · Geisei

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 2026 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.

0 6,152 12k 18k Worst week · 4,815 ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2026 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.

2026: 16,016 ha Average of the other years: 11,126 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.

- Up to 4 November, Copernicus GWIS counts 16,016 hectares burned in Japan in 2026: 1.4 times the average for the same weeks from 2012 to 2025 (11,337 ha). GWIS estimates for the current year are provisional and may change.
- The worst week so far was 5 March to 11 March: 4,815 hectares burned in seven days, 30% of the year to date according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the Aso fire, which started on 8 March 2026 and burned 3,037 hectares: 9% of the area of the year's 58 fires with a page.
- The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 27 July 2026: a Fire Weather Index of 16 (moderate on the EFFIS scale) at the Geisei fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in Japan in 2026”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/japan/2026 (accessed 11 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires, WorldFires · ERA5.

Fires of 2026, largest first · 61

Burned area in 2026 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 26,950 ha burned in 2026 (Jan–May). The year is not complete, so it is not compared with the others.

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
pending from Copernicus

Where most burned in 2026

  1. Kumamoto 14,476 ha
  2. Shizuoka 3,505 ha
  3. Oita 3,378 ha
  4. Yamanashi 1,723 ha
  5. Yamaguchi 1,168 ha
  6. Tochigi 804 ha
  7. Hokkaido 562 ha
  8. Fukuoka Prefecture 373 ha
  9. Miyazaki Prefecture 316 ha
  10. Nagasaki Prefecture 275 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