How long did the Blitar fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 September 2026 and 19 September 2026: 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 3,434 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Blitar (1,693 ha, 1.0 %); Malang (1,668 ha, 0.5 %); Kota Batu (94 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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 · 2026-09-12 → 2026-09-19

Blitar fire, September 2026 Blitar, Malang, Kota Batu

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2026, 18:11 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2026 in Blitar, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,434 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 18th largest in East Java since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 344 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1005.

Burnt area: 3,434ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 12 Sept 2026 – 19 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; regencies
Started on: 12 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 144; in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start: 25; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161719

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

52km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 632 ha in 2018, 2,219 ha in 2019, 135 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,612 ha that had burned before.

2,219 ha Malang fire, October 2019 3,954 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Blitar where it started

1,693 ha

1.0 %
Malang

1,668 ha

0.5 %
Kota Batu

94 ha

0.5 %

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)
5 Sept	26.2 °C	49 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Sept	26.7 °C	44 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 Sept	25.5 °C	54 %	46 km/h	0.4 mm	High 22
8 Sept	25.5 °C	55 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
9 Sept	25.8 °C	58 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
10 Sept	26.2 °C	54 %	40 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 21
11 Sept	27.5 °C	51 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
12 Sept	30.4 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
13 Sept	30.4 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
14 Sept	29.0 °C	38 %	38 km/h	0.7 mm	High 25
15 Sept	28.6 °C	40 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Sept	27.7 °C	42 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
17 Sept	27.6 °C	47 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
18 Sept	27.5 °C	49 %	37 km/h	0.4 mm	High 25
19 Sept	27.5 °C	55 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
20 Sept after	28.1 °C	47 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Sept after	28.9 °C	45 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
22 Sept after	29.4 °C	43 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
23 Sept after	28.6 °C	45 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
24 Sept after	30.2 °C	36 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
25 Sept after	29.1 °C	44 %	38 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 17
26 Sept after	29.7 °C	42 %	36 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 21
27 Sept after	28.2 °C	48 %	38 km/h	2.5 mm	Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Sept 2026

After · 26 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 12 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 54: 3.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak102 µg/m³

Days over the guideline13 days

PM10105 µg/m³

Optical depth1.16

WHO 15

10111213141516171819202122

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 · 144Every 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 Blitar fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 September 2026 and 19 September 2026: 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 3,434 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Blitar (1,693 ha, 1.0 %); Malang (1,668 ha, 0.5 %); Kota Batu (94 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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