How long did the Mappi fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2026 to 27 August 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2026 to 27 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,883 hectares (88.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mappi (8,947 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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 · 2026-08-11 → 2026-08-27

Mappi fire, 11 August 2026 Mappi

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2026, 04:17 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2026 in Mappi, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,883 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Papua since 2016 (of 363 with a page). Number 115 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1005.

Burnt area: 8,883ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 11 Aug 2026 – 27 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 11 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 216; in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start: 13; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 2.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 27 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112141618192021222324252627

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high

42km/h · peak gust

39%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 159 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

Mappi where it started

8,947 ha reached on 11 Aug

0.3 %

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)
11 Aug	31.6 °C	55 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
12 Aug	32.5 °C	52 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
13 Aug	33.0 °C	49 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
14 Aug	32.0 °C	49 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
15 Aug	31.1 °C	49 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
16 Aug	31.1 °C	47 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
17 Aug	31.5 °C	43 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
18 Aug	30.6 °C	48 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
19 Aug	31.0 °C	46 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
20 Aug	31.8 °C	44 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Aug	31.8 °C	42 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
22 Aug	31.5 °C	42 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
23 Aug	31.7 °C	42 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
24 Aug	31.2 °C	50 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
25 Aug	31.5 °C	49 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
26 Aug	31.1 °C	52 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
27 Aug	32.5 °C	49 %	30 km/h	1.7 mm	Moderate 14
28 Aug after	30.5 °C	62 %	37 km/h	5.1 mm	Very low 4
29 Aug after	27.1 °C	70 %	28 km/h	2.7 mm	Very low 3
30 Aug after	27.2 °C	62 %	25 km/h	2.2 mm	Very low 4
31 Aug after	28.6 °C	61 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 8
1 Sept after	30.6 °C	56 %	32 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 13
2 Sept after	32.3 °C	42 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
3 Sept after	34.3 °C	39 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
4 Sept after	35.7 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Sept after	34.8 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Sept after	34.5 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
7 Sept after	33.8 °C	42 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
8 Sept after	33.7 °C	44 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
9 Sept after	33.6 °C	40 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
10 Sept after	33.4 °C	41 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
11 Sept after	33.1 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
12 Sept after	33.2 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
13 Sept after	31.0 °C	44 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Aug 2026

After · 3 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 23 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³

Days over the guideline13 days

PM10112 µg/m³

Optical depth0.98

WHO 15

1415161718192021222324252627282930

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 · 216Every 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 Mappi fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2026 to 27 August 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2026 to 27 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,883 hectares (88.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mappi (8,947 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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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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.

Where it burned