How long did the Malaka fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 October 2026 to 18 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,519 hectares (15.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Malaka (859 ha, 0.8 %).

Is the Malaka fire still active?

Yes: satellites detected fire on 24 Oct 2026, 05:31 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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 · 2026-10-02 → 2026-10-23

Malaka fire, October 2026 Malaka

Burning · last detection 24 Oct 2026, 05:31 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2026 in Malaka, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,519 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in East Nusa Tenggara since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 980 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1005.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 24 Oct 2026, 05:31 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. 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: 1,519ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 2 Oct 2026 – 23 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 2 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 33; in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start: 31; High · FWI index
Energy released: 255MW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Oct 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2569101112151617182021222324

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

57km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 57 ha in 2016, 84 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

Malaka where it started

859 ha reached on 2 Oct

0.8 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
2 Oct	29.1 °C	44 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
3 Oct	28.1 °C	49 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Oct	29.3 °C	41 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
5 Oct	29.6 °C	36 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
6 Oct	30.7 °C	28 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Oct	29.9 °C	40 %	49 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
8 Oct	30.2 °C	39 %	32 km/h	3.8 mm	Low 7
9 Oct	29.6 °C	41 %	30 km/h	4.5 mm	Very low 4
10 Oct	30.1 °C	39 %	33 km/h	1.4 mm	Low 10
11 Oct	30.4 °C	42 %	25 km/h	2.6 mm	Very low 5
12 Oct	31.2 °C	35 %	39 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 15
13 Oct	30.7 °C	43 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
14 Oct	31.4 °C	33 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Oct	30.3 °C	41 %	53 km/h	0.2 mm	High 29
16 Oct	30.1 °C	43 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
17 Oct	31.3 °C	33 %	39 km/h	0.8 mm	High 22
18 Oct	31.3 °C	30 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
19 Oct	32.2 °C	36 %	52 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Sept 2026

After · 23 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 9 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak45 µg/m³

Days over the guideline10 days

PM1052 µg/m³

Optical depth1.25

WHO 15

30123456789101112131415161718

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 · 33Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Malaka fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 October 2026 to 18 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,519 hectares (15.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Malaka (859 ha, 0.8 %).
Is the Malaka fire still active?: Yes: satellites detected fire on 24 Oct 2026, 05:31 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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.

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.