How long did the Barito Selatan fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2026 and 5 September 2026: 25 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,567 hectares (35.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Barito Selatan (3,592 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.

ID · Indonesia · 2026-08-12 → 2026-09-05

Barito Selatan fire, 12 August 2026 Barito Selatan

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2026, 06:31 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2026 in Barito Selatan, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,567 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 120th largest in Central Kalimantan since 2016 (of 315 with a page). Number 336 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1020.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Barito Selatan · 2019 Kapuas · 2026 Kapuas · 2026

Burnt area: 3,567ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 25days; 12 Aug 2026 – 5 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 12 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 128; in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start: 21; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 28MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug5 Sept

Play back 5 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

12 Aug 16 Aug 20 Aug 25 Aug 28 Aug 29 Aug 3 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

28km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 17 Sept.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,117 ha in 2018, 3,852 ha in 2019, 1,199 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,127 ha that had burned before.

463 ha Barito Selatan fire, August 2019 28,138 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 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

Barito Selatan where it started

3,592 ha reached on 12 Aug

0.5 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area6.6 ha

Residents≈ 1,400

Inside the perimeter there were about 6.6 hectares of built-up land and about 1,400 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
8 Aug	34.8 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
9 Aug	34.3 °C	39 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
10 Aug	34.2 °C	40 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
11 Aug	34.2 °C	42 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
12 Aug	34.2 °C	45 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
13 Aug	34.2 °C	49 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
14 Aug	34.8 °C	46 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
15 Aug	35.2 °C	42 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
16 Aug	34.8 °C	45 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
17 Aug	35.2 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
18 Aug	35.3 °C	39 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
19 Aug	35.3 °C	37 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
20 Aug	35.0 °C	42 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
21 Aug	34.8 °C	42 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
22 Aug	34.5 °C	44 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
23 Aug	34.0 °C	49 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
24 Aug	33.8 °C	47 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
25 Aug	34.9 °C	37 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
26 Aug	35.4 °C	33 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
27 Aug	34.7 °C	39 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
28 Aug	35.0 °C	37 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
29 Aug	35.5 °C	30 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
30 Aug	35.4 °C	41 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
31 Aug	35.0 °C	43 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Sept	34.8 °C	35 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
2 Sept	35.2 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
3 Sept	34.5 °C	42 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Sept	35.1 °C	42 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
5 Sept	35.0 °C	39 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
6 Sept after	34.8 °C	44 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
7 Sept after	34.2 °C	51 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
8 Sept after	34.2 °C	49 %	20 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 21
9 Sept after	35.2 °C	40 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
10 Sept after	35.5 °C	38 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
11 Sept after	36.7 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Sept after	35.5 °C	41 %	18 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
13 Sept after	35.8 °C	40 %	17 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
14 Sept after	36.2 °C	33 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Sept after	35.5 °C	40 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
16 Sept after	33.1 °C	48 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Sept after	32.3 °C	49 %	22 km/h	3.8 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Aug 2026

After · 12 Sept 2026

Before After

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 30 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 1,397 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 571: 38 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak1,397 µg/m³

Days over the guideline30 days

PM101,412 µg/m³

Optical depth6.13

WHO 15

1011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678

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 · 128Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Indonesia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Barito Selatan fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2026 and 5 September 2026: 25 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,567 hectares (35.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Barito Selatan (3,592 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 128 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.

Where it burned