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Merauke fire, 5 October 2018 Merauke

Out · last measured on 11 Oct 2018

The fire started on 5 October 2018 in Merauke, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,597 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 48th largest in Papua since 2016 (of 363 with a page). Number 10 in Indonesia in 2018, of 110.

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
6,597ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
5 Oct 2018 – 11 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
5 Oct
2018
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

34°high
37km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 15 Oct.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 269 ha in 2016, 41 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 282 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Merauke where it started
    6,648 ha
    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)
5 Oct 34.3 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Oct 33.9 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Oct 34.4 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Oct 34.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Oct 33.5 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Oct 34.4 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Oct 34.1 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Oct after 33.0 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
13 Oct after 33.2 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
14 Oct after 34.7 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 23
15 Oct after 33.3 °C 48 % 26 km/h 3.1 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Sept 2018
After · 18 Oct 2018

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 Merauke fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2018 and 11 October 2018: 7 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 6,597 hectares (66.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Merauke (6,648 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

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.

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.