How long did the Luwu Timur fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 October 2026 to 30 October 2026 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 October 2026 to 30 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,497 hectares (45.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Luwu Timur (4,528 ha, 0.7 %).

Is the Luwu Timur fire still active?

No fire detections since 30 Oct 2026, 05:23 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.

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 · 2026-10-03 → 2026-10-30

Luwu Timur fire, October 2026 Luwu Timur

Dying down · last detection 30 Oct 2026, 05:23 UTC

The fire started on 3 October 2026 in Luwu Timur, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,497 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in South Sulawesi since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 262 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1020.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Luwu Timur · 2026 Luwu Timur · 2026 Luwu Timur · 2026 Luwu Timur · 2019

Is it still active?

No detections since 30 Oct 2026, 05:23 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Burnt area: 4,497ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 28days; 3 Oct 2026 – 30 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 3 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 167; in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start: 14; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 30MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Oct30 Oct

Play back 30 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

3 Oct 7 Oct 11 Oct 15 Oct 19 Oct 23 Oct 27 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

31°high

33km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 214 ha in 2019, 199 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 349 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (45 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

Luwu Timur where it started

4,528 ha reached on 3 Oct

0.7 %

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.

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
3 Oct	29.1 °C	37 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
4 Oct	29.1 °C	45 %	24 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 14
5 Oct	29.4 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
6 Oct	30.0 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 17
7 Oct	29.7 °C	38 %	25 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 18
8 Oct	29.3 °C	44 %	26 km/h	2.3 mm	Very low 5
9 Oct	28.5 °C	55 %	23 km/h	3.2 mm	Very low 2
10 Oct	29.0 °C	55 %	21 km/h	3.3 mm	Very low 1
11 Oct	28.0 °C	63 %	25 km/h	5.6 mm	Very low 0
12 Oct	29.2 °C	47 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	Very low 3
13 Oct	29.7 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 8
14 Oct	29.5 °C	47 %	20 km/h	0.8 mm	Low 7
15 Oct	29.5 °C	42 %	28 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 10
16 Oct	29.8 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 12
17 Oct	28.4 °C	54 %	22 km/h	4.5 mm	Very low 1
18 Oct	29.8 °C	47 %	20 km/h	0.9 mm	Very low 3
19 Oct	31.3 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
20 Oct	30.9 °C	26 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
21 Oct	29.5 °C	38 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 16
22 Oct	29.5 °C	46 %	23 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 8
23 Oct	29.3 °C	52 %	23 km/h	3.3 mm	Very low 2
24 Oct	29.8 °C	44 %	22 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 7
25 Oct	29.9 °C	46 %	24 km/h	0.6 mm	Low 10
26 Oct	29.8 °C	48 %	24 km/h	1.5 mm	Low 6
27 Oct	29.6 °C	48 %	22 km/h	2.7 mm	Very low 3
28 Oct	29.6 °C	44 %	24 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 6
29 Oct	30.0 °C	43 %	26 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 12
30 Oct	30.3 °C	43 %	21 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Sept 2026

After · 29 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 24 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 142 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 99: 6.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak142 µg/m³

Days over the guideline29 days

PM10146 µg/m³

Optical depth1.89

WHO 15

1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829

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 · 167Every 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 Luwu Timur fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 October 2026 to 30 October 2026 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 October 2026 to 30 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,497 hectares (45.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Luwu Timur (4,528 ha, 0.7 %).
Is the Luwu Timur fire still active?: No fire detections since 30 Oct 2026, 05:23 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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 · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

30 October 2026 Area: 2,946 → 4,497 ha.
30 October 2026 Start date: 9 October 2026 → 3 October 2026.
26 October 2026 Area: 2,866 → 2,946 ha.

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 5 October 2026 to 30 October 2026. 167 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.

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.