How long did the Halmahera Utara fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 September 2026 to 15 October 2026 (38 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 September 2026 to 11 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,502 hectares (55.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Halmahera Utara (5,539 ha, 1.6 %).

Is the Halmahera Utara fire still active?

No fire detections since 15 Oct 2026, 05:04 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

ID · Indonesia · 2026-09-08 → 2026-10-15

Halmahera Utara fire, 8 September 2026 Halmahera Utara

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2026, 05:04 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2026 in Halmahera Utara, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,502 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in North Maluku since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 217 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1009.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Halmahera Utara · 2026 Halmahera Utara · 2026 Halmahera Utara · 2026 Halmahera Utara · 2026

Burnt area: 5,502ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 38days; 8 Sept 2026 – 15 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 8 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 152; in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 29MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept15 Oct

Play back 15 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

8 Sept 15 Sept 19 Sept 20 Sept 26 Sept 2 Oct 7 Oct 14 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

44km/h · peak gust

33%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.5% of the area of London (55 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Halmahera Utara where it started

5,539 ha reached on 8 Sept

1.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area0.80 ha

Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.80 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
8 Sept	33.7 °C	47 %	29 km/h	0.3 mm	High 23
9 Sept	34.4 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
10 Sept	35.0 °C	38 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
11 Sept	33.8 °C	44 %	24 km/h	0.3 mm	High 28
12 Sept	34.1 °C	42 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
13 Sept	33.8 °C	41 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Sept	34.6 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
15 Sept	34.2 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
16 Sept	34.8 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
17 Sept	34.7 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
18 Sept	35.3 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Sept	35.3 °C	37 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Sept	36.2 °C	33 %	21 km/h	0.3 mm	High 30
21 Sept	35.8 °C	35 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Sept	35.0 °C	38 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
23 Sept	34.9 °C	39 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
24 Sept	34.8 °C	40 %	24 km/h	0.3 mm	High 32
25 Sept	35.2 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Sept	35.8 °C	35 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
27 Sept	35.3 °C	37 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
28 Sept	35.7 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
29 Sept	35.0 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.5 mm	High 34
30 Sept	35.8 °C	36 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
1 Oct	35.3 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
2 Oct	35.2 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
3 Oct	35.2 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Oct	35.2 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
5 Oct	36.3 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Sept 2026

After · 22 Oct 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 26 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 59: 4.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak84 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM1088 µg/m³

Optical depth1.51

WHO 15

91011121314151617181920212223242526272829

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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

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 8 September 2026 to 15 October 2026 (38 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 September 2026 to 11 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,502 hectares (55.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Halmahera Utara (5,539 ha, 1.6 %).
Is the Halmahera Utara fire still active?: No fire detections since 15 Oct 2026, 05:04 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 September 2026 to 11 October 2026. 152 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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