Skip to content
worldfires
ID · Indonesia · →

Buol fire, 31 August 2026 Buol

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2026, 17:26 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2026 in Buol, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 46 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,219 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 2th largest in Central Sulawesi since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 184 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1005.

Burnt area
6,219ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
46days
31 Aug 2026 – 15 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
31 Aug
2026
Heat detections
260
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

311234789101112131415161718192021222324252628293012345678101213141516

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
65km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Buol where it started
    6,261 ha reached on 31 Aug
    1.6 %

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 31.3 °C 51 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
1 Sept 31.5 °C 45 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Sept 31.9 °C 45 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Sept 31.7 °C 50 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Sept 32.4 °C 47 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Sept 32.0 °C 48 % 51 km/h 0.5 mm High 29
6 Sept 32.7 °C 44 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Sept 32.8 °C 46 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
8 Sept 32.2 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Sept 32.8 °C 40 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Sept 32.1 °C 47 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Sept 32.4 °C 43 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Sept 32.6 °C 41 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Sept 32.2 °C 33 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept 32.2 °C 37 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept 31.9 °C 36 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept 32.0 °C 42 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Sept 31.4 °C 48 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Sept 31.6 °C 47 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Sept 32.7 °C 41 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Sept 32.3 °C 47 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
21 Sept 31.4 °C 51 % 47 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 19
22 Sept 31.3 °C 53 % 40 km/h 2.3 mm Low 10
23 Sept 32.3 °C 49 % 27 km/h 1.6 mm Low 10
24 Sept 32.7 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
25 Sept 32.2 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.7 mm High 22
26 Sept 31.8 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
27 Sept 33.0 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Sept 32.7 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
29 Sept 33.9 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Sept 33.7 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Oct 31.5 °C 48 % 51 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
2 Oct 33.7 °C 38 % 32 km/h 1.0 mm High 24
3 Oct 33.0 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
4 Oct 33.5 °C 40 % 39 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 15
5 Oct 31.2 °C 51 % 55 km/h 0.2 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2026
After · 22 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 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak47 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM1054 µg/m³
Optical depth0.96
5678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293012
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 · 260Every 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 Buol fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 August 2026 to 15 October 2026 (46 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 September 2026 to 8 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,219 hectares (62.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Buol (6,261 ha, 1.6 %).
Is the Buol fire still active?
No fire detections since 16 Oct 2026, 17:26 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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

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.