Skip to content
worldfires
ID · Indonesia · →

Bima fire, October 2023 Bima

Out · last measured on 22 Oct 2023

The fire started on 15 October 2023 in Bima, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,315 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in West Nusa Tenggara since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 29 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
3,315ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
15 Oct 2023 – 22 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
15 Oct
2023
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

29°high
35km/h · peak gust
47%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 29 Oct.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 82 ha in 2016, 1,247 ha in 2017, 521 ha in 2018, 2,320 ha in 2019, 1,333 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,097 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bima where it started
    3,335 ha
    0.8 %

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)
15 Oct 28.4 °C 52 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Oct 28.4 °C 51 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
17 Oct 27.8 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
18 Oct 28.8 °C 50 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
19 Oct 28.7 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Oct 28.4 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
21 Oct 28.4 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
22 Oct 28.3 °C 54 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Oct after 28.3 °C 50 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
24 Oct after 28.6 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
25 Oct after 28.9 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
26 Oct after 29.1 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
27 Oct after 29.0 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
28 Oct after 28.6 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
29 Oct after 27.9 °C 61 % 32 km/h 1.9 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Oct 2023
After · 29 Oct 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 22 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 169 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 73: 4.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak169 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10242 µg/m³
Optical depth1.33
13141516171819202122232425
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 Bima fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 October 2023 and 22 October 2023: 8 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 3,315 hectares (33.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bima (3,335 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 47 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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.