Skip to content
worldfires
ID · Indonesia · –

Ketapang fire, 29 August 2019 Ketapang

Out · last measured on 21 Sept 2019

The fire started on 29 August 2019 in Ketapang, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,080 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 40th largest in West Kalimantan since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 151 in Indonesia in 2019, of 409.

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
3,080ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
29 Aug 2019 – 21 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
29 Aug
2019
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 23 Sept.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 52 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.9% of the area of London (31 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

  1. Ketapang where it started
    3,101 ha
    0.1 %

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 2020
Built-up area0.38 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.38 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
29 Aug 33.5 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Aug 33.0 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
31 Aug 32.9 °C 49 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
1 Sept 32.5 °C 55 % 33 km/h 3.0 mm Moderate 18
2 Sept 34.3 °C 49 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
3 Sept 34.8 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
4 Sept 35.3 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Sept 35.0 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Sept 34.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Sept 34.3 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Sept 34.5 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Sept 34.5 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Sept 35.6 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Sept 35.3 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Sept 34.6 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Sept 35.0 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Sept 34.9 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Sept 34.0 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Sept 33.8 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Sept 34.3 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
18 Sept 35.7 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Sept 35.2 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Sept 34.0 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Sept 32.5 °C 53 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
22 Sept after 33.7 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 28
23 Sept after 33.9 °C 50 % 38 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 19

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 18.8, a minimum humidity of 39% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2018: 9.

FWI at the start 18.8
Minimum humidity 39 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ketapang fire, August 2018
3,578 ha 10 days FWI 19.0 Min. humidity 42 % 7 km away, in 2018

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 15.0 mm on 25 Aug.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 9. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.2 mmfirst rain
23 Sept2 days after it ended
45km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 21 Sept, and on 23 Sept 2.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2018.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2019
After · 28 Sept 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in Indonesia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ketapang fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2019 and 21 September 2019: 24 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,080 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ketapang (3,101 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night 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
What do you think is wrong?

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 2020, 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.