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Berau fire, 31 August 2023 Berau

Out · last measured on 6 Sept 2023

The fire started on 31 August 2023 in Berau, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,382 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in East Kalimantan since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 60 in Indonesia in 2023, of 168.

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
2,382ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
31 Aug 2023 – 6 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
31 Aug
2023
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

34°high
27km/h · peak gust
51%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 21.5 mm on 7 Sept.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 210 ha in 2016, 2,041 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,552 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Berau where it started
    2,399 ha
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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)
31 Aug 34.2 °C 60 % 22 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 4
1 Sept 34.1 °C 55 % 27 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 3
2 Sept 33.8 °C 56 % 23 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 4
3 Sept 33.7 °C 52 % 24 km/h 0.6 mm Low 8
4 Sept 34.3 °C 51 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
5 Sept 33.6 °C 57 % 22 km/h 1.2 mm Very low 5
6 Sept 33.1 °C 55 % 18 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 3
7 Sept after 29.1 °C 79 % 21 km/h 21.5 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2023
After · 13 Sept 2023

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 8 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 127 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak127 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10182 µg/m³
Optical depth1.01
293031123456789
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Indonesia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Berau fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 August 2023 and 6 September 2023: 7 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 2,382 hectares (23.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Berau (2,399 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 51 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.