How long did the Mappi fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 September 2026 to 12 October 2026 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 September 2026 to 7 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,148 hectares (51.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mappi (5,193 ha, 0.2 %).

Is the Mappi fire still active?

No fire detections since 12 Oct 2026, 04:17 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 44 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.

ID · Indonesia · 2026-09-10 → 2026-10-12

Mappi fire, 10 September 2026 Mappi

Out · last detection 12 Oct 2026, 04:17 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2026 in Mappi, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,148 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 61th largest in Papua since 2016 (of 363 with a page). Number 224 in Indonesia in 2026, of 988.

The power measured by the satellite is low (30.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 5,148ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 33days; 10 Sept 2026 – 12 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 10 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 169; in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start: 32; High · FWI index
Energy released: 928MW; sum of detected power

Play back 12 Oct 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept12 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

101112131819202122242526272829301234567891112

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

44km/h · peak gust

34%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 185 ha in 2016, 3 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

Mappi where it started

5,193 ha reached on 10 Sept

0.2 %

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)
10 Sept	33.5 °C	38 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
11 Sept	33.0 °C	34 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
12 Sept	33.0 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Sept	32.5 °C	39 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
14 Sept	31.8 °C	44 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
15 Sept	31.1 °C	47 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
16 Sept	31.0 °C	48 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Sept	33.2 °C	40 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
18 Sept	32.8 °C	41 %	44 km/h	0.2 mm	High 31
19 Sept	31.5 °C	47 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
20 Sept	32.3 °C	45 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
21 Sept	32.6 °C	45 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Sept	32.0 °C	48 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
23 Sept	31.1 °C	52 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
24 Sept	32.2 °C	48 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
25 Sept	32.2 °C	47 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
26 Sept	33.1 °C	43 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
27 Sept	33.6 °C	41 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
28 Sept	33.7 °C	41 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 Sept	33.5 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
30 Sept	32.3 °C	46 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
1 Oct	33.5 °C	42 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
2 Oct	33.7 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
3 Oct	33.0 °C	43 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Oct	33.0 °C	45 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
5 Oct	35.0 °C	36 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Sept 2026

After · 19 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 30 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 275 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 122: 8.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak275 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM10279 µg/m³

Optical depth4.45

WHO 15

141516171819202122232425262728293012

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 · 169Every 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 10 September 2026 to 12 October 2026 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 September 2026 to 7 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,148 hectares (51.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mappi (5,193 ha, 0.2 %).
Is the Mappi fire still active?: No fire detections since 12 Oct 2026, 04:17 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 44 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

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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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