How long did the Kapuas fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 August 2026 to 15 September 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2026 to 8 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,642 hectares (66.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kapuas (5,425 ha, 0.3 %); Barito Kuala (1,266 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · 23 Aug 2026 – 15 Sept 2026

Kapuas fire, 23 August 2026 Kapuas, Barito Kuala

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2026, 17:43 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2026 in Kapuas, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,642 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 58th largest in Central Kalimantan since 2016 (of 317 with a page). Number 176 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1031.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kapuas · 2019 Kapuas · 2026 Banjar · 2026

Burnt area: 6,642ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 24days; 23 Aug 2026 – 15 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; regencies
Started on: 23 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 160; in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start: 33; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 61MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug15 Sept

Play back 15 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

24 Aug 28 Aug 1 Sept 5 Sept 13 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

38°high

41km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,917 ha in 2019, 2,491 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,086 ha that had burned before.

3,164 ha Kapuas fire, September 2019 6,210 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.2% of the area of London (66 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

Kapuas where it started

5,425 ha reached on 24 Aug

0.3 %
Barito Kuala

1,266 ha reached on 26 Aug

0.5 %

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 area2.6 ha

Residents≈ 500

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.6 hectares of built-up land and about 500 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)
20 Aug	35.5 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
21 Aug	35.2 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
22 Aug	35.2 °C	40 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
23 Aug	34.7 °C	43 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
24 Aug	34.8 °C	41 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
25 Aug	34.6 °C	39 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
26 Aug	35.4 °C	35 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
27 Aug	35.1 °C	35 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
28 Aug	34.7 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
29 Aug	35.5 °C	35 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
30 Aug	36.0 °C	37 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
31 Aug	35.1 °C	41 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Sept	34.8 °C	38 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
2 Sept	35.2 °C	38 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Sept	35.2 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
4 Sept	35.2 °C	41 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Sept	34.8 °C	39 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
6 Sept	35.5 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
7 Sept	34.3 °C	47 %	28 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
8 Sept	34.8 °C	47 %	23 km/h	0.3 mm	High 28
9 Sept	35.4 °C	41 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
10 Sept	35.5 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
11 Sept	36.5 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Sept	36.0 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
13 Sept	36.7 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
14 Sept	36.2 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
15 Sept	36.5 °C	36 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
16 Sept after	34.2 °C	44 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Sept after	33.7 °C	43 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
18 Sept after	36.4 °C	35 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Sept after	37.8 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
20 Sept after	37.6 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Sept after	37.0 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
22 Sept after	37.2 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Sept after	37.0 °C	33 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
24 Sept after	35.7 °C	45 %	26 km/h	6.4 mm	Low 7
25 Sept after	33.0 °C	62 %	17 km/h	8.2 mm	Very low 2
26 Sept after	36.5 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
27 Sept after	36.1 °C	41 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
28 Sept after	35.6 °C	39 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
29 Sept after	36.2 °C	39 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
30 Sept after	35.7 °C	47 %	37 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
1 Oct after	37.2 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
2 Oct after	37.5 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Oct after	36.8 °C	34 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
4 Oct after	36.9 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
5 Oct after	37.5 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Aug 2026

After · 22 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 7 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 146 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak146 µg/m³

Days over the guideline20 days

PM10152 µg/m³

Optical depth2.29

WHO 15

21 Aug26 Aug31 Aug5 Sept10 Sept

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 · 160Every 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 Kapuas fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 August 2026 to 15 September 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 August 2026 to 8 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,642 hectares (66.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kapuas (5,425 ha, 0.3 %); Barito Kuala (1,266 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 August 2026 to 8 September 2026. 160 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