Kapuas fire, July 2026 Kapuas, Barito Selatan, Barito Kuala
The fire started on 26 July 2026 in Kapuas, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 65 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 49,970 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
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.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
- 60,627 haKapuas 23 August 2026 · 63 days
- 39,951 haKapuas 8 August 2026 · 78 days
- 6,642 haKapuas 23 August 2026 · 24 days
- 5,989 haKapuas 10 September 2026 · 15 days
- 4,364 haKapuas14 September 2026 · 24 days
- 4,258 haKapuas 11 September 2026 · 13 days
- 4,007 haKapuas 10 September 2026 · 22 days
- 3,878 haTapin 19 September 2026 · 35 days
It is the 10th largest in Central Kalimantan since 2016 (of 317 with a page). Number 23 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1007.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 49,970ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 65days
- 26 Jul 2026 – 28 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- regencies
- Started on
- 26 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,406
- in a single hotspot: 236 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 182MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 30 Sept.
This area had burned before
64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 336 ha in 2016, 283 ha in 2017, 7,177 ha in 2018, 19,888 ha in 2019, 406 ha in 2020, 548 ha in 2022, 23,914 ha in 2023, 254 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 32,089 ha that had burned before.
- 5,348 ha Kapuas fire, September 2019 3,977 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,136 ha Kapuas fire, September 2023 1,759 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,102 ha Barito Selatan fire, August 2019 28,138 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,438 ha Barito Kuala fire, September 2019 2,143 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,658 ha Kapuas fire, August 2023 1,721 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,590 ha Kapuas fire, September 2023 1,631 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 648 ha Kapuas fire, September 2023 2,239 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 232 ha Kapuas fire, August 2018 1,842 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Jakarta boundary: geoBoundaries · Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS - Statistics Indonesia), World Food Programme, OCHA ROAP (CC BY 3.0 IGO).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Kapuas where it started38,694 ha2.2 %
-
5,779 ha0.9 %
-
5,706 ha2.4 %
-
144 ha0.1 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 31 hectares of built-up land and about 5,300 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jul | 37.2 °C | 32 % | 11 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Jul | 34.5 °C | 39 % | 10 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 28 Jul | 32.7 °C | 52 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 29 Jul | 33.7 °C | 48 % | 29 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 30 Jul | 34.3 °C | 43 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 31 Jul | 35.0 °C | 42 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 1 Aug | 35.3 °C | 40 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 2 Aug | 35.3 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 3 Aug | 35.3 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 4 Aug | 35.3 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Aug | 35.6 °C | 36 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 6 Aug | 35.3 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 7 Aug | 35.2 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Aug | 35.3 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 9 Aug | 34.8 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Aug | 34.7 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Aug | 35.1 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Aug | 34.8 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Aug | 34.8 °C | 44 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Aug | 35.7 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Aug | 35.6 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 16 Aug | 35.3 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 17 Aug | 36.0 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Aug | 36.3 °C | 31 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Aug | 35.5 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Aug | 35.8 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Aug | 35.8 °C | 35 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Aug | 35.4 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Aug | 35.3 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Aug | 34.8 °C | 41 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Aug | 35.1 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Aug | 35.8 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Aug | 35.5 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 28 Aug | 35.2 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Aug | 36.1 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Aug | 36.2 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 31 Aug | 35.7 °C | 39 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Sept | 35.2 °C | 35 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Sept | 35.2 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Sept | 35.5 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Sept | 35.8 °C | 37 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Sept | 35.0 °C | 38 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Sept | 35.7 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Sept | 34.8 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Sept | 35.5 °C | 43 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Sept | 35.3 °C | 41 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Sept | 36.0 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Sept | 36.9 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Sept | 36.2 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Sept | 37.2 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Sept | 37.3 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 15 Sept | 36.3 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Sept | 34.5 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 2.8 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 17 Sept | 33.1 °C | 47 % | 24 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 18 Sept | 36.0 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 19 Sept | 37.1 °C | 31 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Sept | 36.7 °C | 32 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Sept | 37.0 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Sept | 37.5 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Sept | 36.5 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Sept | 35.7 °C | 49 % | 29 km/h | 5.6 mm | Low 7 |
| 25 Sept | 32.8 °C | 62 % | 18 km/h | 14.7 mm | Very low 1 |
| 26 Sept | 36.5 °C | 38 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 27 Sept | 36.0 °C | 43 % | 34 km/h | 1.5 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 28 Sept | 35.7 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 29 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 42 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 30 Sept after | 35.9 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 2.9 mm | Low 9 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 17 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 1,188 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 434: 29 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,406Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kapuas fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 July 2026 to 28 September 2026 (65 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 July 2026 to 22 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 49,970 hectares (499.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Kapuas (38,694 ha, 2.2 %); Barito Selatan (5,779 ha, 0.9 %); Barito Kuala (5,706 ha, 2.4 %); Tapin (144 ha, 0.1 %).
- Is the Kapuas fire still active?
- No fire detections since 29 Sept 2026, 05:40 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 18 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 July 2026 to 22 September 2026. 1,406 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.
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.