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Halmahera Utara fire, 1 September 2026 Halmahera Utara

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2026, 04:55 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2026 in Halmahera Utara, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,025 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in North Maluku since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 290 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1010.

Burnt area
4,025ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
1 Sept 2026 – 26 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
1 Sept
2026
Heat detections
152
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
55MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

26 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept26 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1 Sept 2026 · 3 MW · 1 2 Sept 2026 · 8 MW · 1 4 Sept 2026 · 25 MW · 2 5 Sept 2026 · 60 MW · 3 6 Sept 2026 · 26 MW · 4 7 Sept 2026 · 12 MW · 2 8 Sept 2026 · 7 MW · 1 9 Sept 2026 · 77 MW · 5 10 Sept 2026 · 40 MW · 5 11 Sept 2026 · 2 MW · 2 12 Sept 2026 · 142 MW · 11 13 Sept 2026 · 142 MW · 26 14 Sept 2026 · 205 MW · 22 15 Sept 2026 · 262 MW · 34 16 Sept 2026 · 49 MW · 11 17 Sept 2026 · 20 MW · 5 18 Sept 2026 · 11 MW · 3 19 Sept 2026 · 13 MW · 2 21 Sept 2026 · 2 MW · 1 23 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 24 Sept 2026 · 86 MW · 8 26 Sept 2026 · 17 MW · 2
1 Sept 6 Sept 10 Sept 14 Sept 15 Sept 18 Sept 24 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

35°high
52km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 147 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Halmahera Utara where it started
    4,052 ha
    1.2 %

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)
1 Sept 34.5 °C 44 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
2 Sept 34.8 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Sept 34.6 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Sept 35.2 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept 34.2 °C 45 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 33.6 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
7 Sept 33.5 °C 51 % 30 km/h 3.3 mm Low 10
8 Sept 33.2 °C 51 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 21
9 Sept 33.6 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Sept 33.8 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Sept 34.1 °C 44 % 31 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 19
12 Sept 33.8 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Sept 32.8 °C 46 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Sept 33.6 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Sept 33.2 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Sept 33.9 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Sept 33.5 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Sept 34.3 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Sept 35.0 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Sept 34.9 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Sept 34.8 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Sept 34.5 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Sept 34.6 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Sept 34.7 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
25 Sept 34.5 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Sept 35.0 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept after 35.2 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
28 Sept after 35.2 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.8 mm High 26
29 Sept after 34.2 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Sept after 35.1 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Oct after 35.0 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Oct after 34.5 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Oct after 34.6 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Oct after 34.3 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Oct after 35.0 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2026
After · 3 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 16 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM1074 µg/m³
Optical depth1.14
678910111213141516171819202122
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 · 152Every 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 Halmahera Utara fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 September 2026 to 26 September 2026 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 September 2026 to 19 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,025 hectares (40.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Halmahera Utara (4,052 ha, 1.2 %).
Is the Halmahera Utara fire still active?
No fire detections since 26 Sept 2026, 04:55 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 52 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
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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.