How long did the Katingan fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 August 2026 to 15 September 2026 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 August 2026 to 15 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,293 hectares (32.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Katingan (3,316 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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 · 2026-08-24 → 2026-09-15

Katingan fire, 24 August 2026 Katingan

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2026, 06:42 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2026 in Katingan, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,293 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 124th largest in Central Kalimantan since 2016 (of 317 with a page). Number 361 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1007.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Katingan · 2026 Katingan · 2026 Katingan · 2026 Kotawaringin Timur · 2026

Burnt area: 3,293ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 24 Aug 2026 – 15 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 24 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 385; in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start: 27; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 108MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug15 Sept

Play back 15 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

26 Aug 29 Aug 1 Sept 4 Sept 8 Sept 11 Sept 14 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

36°high

34km/h · peak gust

36%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 21 Sept.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,050 ha in 2019, 1,263 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,142 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.1% of the area of London (33 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

Katingan where it started

3,316 ha reached on 26 Aug

0.2 %

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 area0.15 ha

Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.15 hectares of built-up land and about 30 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)
19 Aug	35.2 °C	40 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
20 Aug	34.8 °C	42 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
21 Aug	35.0 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Aug	34.0 °C	47 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
23 Aug	33.2 °C	51 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
24 Aug	33.0 °C	51 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
25 Aug	34.7 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
26 Aug	35.2 °C	37 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
27 Aug	34.8 °C	38 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
28 Aug	34.2 °C	42 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
29 Aug	35.2 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
30 Aug	35.3 °C	41 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
31 Aug	35.0 °C	42 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Sept	34.9 °C	37 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
2 Sept	34.8 °C	38 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
3 Sept	34.2 °C	41 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Sept	33.8 °C	49 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Sept	34.0 °C	40 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Sept	34.1 °C	45 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
7 Sept	32.5 °C	57 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
8 Sept	33.8 °C	46 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
9 Sept	34.0 °C	44 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
10 Sept	35.1 °C	41 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
11 Sept	35.5 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Sept	34.5 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
13 Sept	33.8 °C	54 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
14 Sept	35.1 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
15 Sept	33.6 °C	47 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
16 Sept after	31.5 °C	57 %	19 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 16
17 Sept after	30.9 °C	54 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
18 Sept after	35.0 °C	39 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
19 Sept after	35.8 °C	36 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Sept after	36.1 °C	36 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
21 Sept after	33.7 °C	55 %	18 km/h	5.2 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 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 16 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 1,792 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 477: 32 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak1,792 µg/m³

Days over the guideline26 days

PM101,822 µg/m³

Optical depth9.06

WHO 15

2425262728293031123456789101112131415161718

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 · 385Every 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 Katingan fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 August 2026 to 15 September 2026 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 August 2026 to 15 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,293 hectares (32.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Katingan (3,316 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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?

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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 26 August 2026 to 15 September 2026. 385 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