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Balangan fire, August 2026 Balangan, Hulu Sungai Utara

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2026, 05:21 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Balangan, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 36 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,896 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 33th largest in South Kalimantan since 2016 (of 99 with a page). Number 433 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1009.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Hulu Sungai Utara · 2019Hulu Sungai Tengah · 2026Hulu Sungai Utara · 2026Hulu Sungai Selatan · 2026

Burnt area
2,896ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
36days
26 Aug 2026 – 30 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
2
regencies
Started on
26 Aug
2026
Heat detections
194
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Average daily power
34MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug30 Sept
30 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

26 Aug 2026 · 16 MW · 2 28 Aug 2026 · 8 MW · 1 29 Aug 2026 · 25 MW · 10 30 Aug 2026 · 2 MW · 1 1 Sept 2026 · 47 MW · 4 3 Sept 2026 · 41 MW · 11 4 Sept 2026 · 93 MW · 20 5 Sept 2026 · 94 MW · 21 6 Sept 2026 · 13 MW · 3 8 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 9 Sept 2026 · 2 MW · 2 10 Sept 2026 · 3 MW · 2 11 Sept 2026 · 8 MW · 3 12 Sept 2026 · 60 MW · 9 13 Sept 2026 · 180 MW · 23 14 Sept 2026 · 33 MW · 13 15 Sept 2026 · 55 MW · 8 18 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 19 Sept 2026 · 18 MW · 6 20 Sept 2026 · 24 MW · 6 21 Sept 2026 · 63 MW · 9 22 Sept 2026 · 87 MW · 14 24 Sept 2026 · 14 MW · 9 25 Sept 2026 · 9 MW · 6 26 Sept 2026 · 11 MW · 5 27 Sept 2026 · 26 MW · 2 29 Sept 2026 · 9 MW · 1 30 Sept 2026 · 6 MW · 1
26 Aug 1 Sept 6 Sept 11 Sept 13 Sept 15 Sept 21 Sept 26 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
34km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 1 Oct.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,304 ha in 2018, 3,392 ha in 2019, 1,594 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,593 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (29 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Balangan where it started
    1,897 ha reached on 26 Aug
    1.0 %
  2. Hulu Sungai Utara
    1,019 ha reached on 29 Aug
    1.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
26 Aug 35.5 °C 30 % 10 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Aug 35.2 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Aug 35.3 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 35.8 °C 28 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Aug 36.2 °C 35 % 12 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Aug 35.5 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Sept 35.3 °C 35 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Sept 35.2 °C 34 % 10 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Sept 35.7 °C 36 % 12 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept 35.5 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Sept 35.5 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Sept 36.0 °C 37 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Sept 35.4 °C 45 % 18 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Sept 35.6 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
9 Sept 35.8 °C 39 % 11 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
10 Sept 35.5 °C 37 % 10 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Sept 36.7 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Sept 36.1 °C 39 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Sept 35.9 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Sept 36.2 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Sept 36.8 °C 34 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Sept 34.2 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
17 Sept 33.0 °C 48 % 17 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17
18 Sept 35.4 °C 40 % 12 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Sept 36.8 °C 35 % 13 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Sept 36.2 °C 35 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Sept 36.9 °C 29 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Sept 37.0 °C 34 % 12 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Sept 36.6 °C 38 % 34 km/h 4.3 mm Moderate 15
24 Sept 34.8 °C 53 % 23 km/h 4.1 mm Low 6
25 Sept 35.0 °C 49 % 17 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 14
26 Sept 36.0 °C 46 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
27 Sept 36.3 °C 41 % 17 km/h 12.8 mm Very low 3
28 Sept 35.5 °C 42 % 15 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 4
29 Sept 36.2 °C 39 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
30 Sept 36.6 °C 41 % 17 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 14
1 Oct after 36.3 °C 39 % 17 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2026
After · 7 Oct 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 17 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 853 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 505: 34 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak853 µg/m³
Days over the guideline41 days
PM10866 µg/m³
Optical depth11.97
2425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930123
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 · 194Every 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 Indonesia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Balangan fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2026 to 30 September 2026 (36 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 September 2026 to 29 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,896 hectares (29.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Balangan (1,897 ha, 1.0 %); Hulu Sungai Utara (1,019 ha, 1.1 %).
Is the Balangan fire still active?
No fire detections since 30 Sept 2026, 05:21 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Indonesia (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: 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 September 2026 to 29 September 2026. 194 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.