How long did the Merauke fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2026 to 24 September 2026 (45 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 August 2026 to 17 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,343 hectares (123.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Merauke (12,423 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 → 2026-09-24

Merauke fire, 11 August 2026 Merauke

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2026, 16:16 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2026 in Merauke, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,343 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 20th largest in Papua since 2016 (of 358 with a page). Number 90 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1028.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Merauke · 2023 Merauke · 2026 Merauke · 2026 Merauke · 2026

Burnt area: 12,343ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 45days; 11 Aug 2026 – 24 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 11 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 314; in a single hotspot: 101 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 82MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug24 Sept

Play back 25 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

11 Aug 17 Aug 21 Aug 22 Aug 3 Sept 8 Sept 13 Sept 21 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

55km/h · peak gust

42%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 103 ha in 2023.

100 ha Merauke fire, November 2023 1,825 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.8% of the area of London (123 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

Merauke where it started

12,423 ha reached on 11 Aug

0.3 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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	31.7 °C	51 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
12 Aug	30.7 °C	54 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
13 Aug	30.3 °C	54 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
14 Aug	30.1 °C	52 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
15 Aug	31.2 °C	47 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
16 Aug	29.8 °C	49 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
17 Aug	29.6 °C	47 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
18 Aug	29.9 °C	50 %	50 km/h	0.1 mm	High 26
19 Aug	29.9 °C	49 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Aug	30.2 °C	49 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
21 Aug	30.4 °C	47 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Aug	29.7 °C	49 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
23 Aug	29.6 °C	49 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
24 Aug	30.4 °C	50 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
25 Aug	29.7 °C	56 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
26 Aug	29.4 °C	64 %	44 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 16
27 Aug	31.3 °C	54 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
28 Aug	29.6 °C	64 %	50 km/h	2.0 mm	Low 10
29 Aug	28.8 °C	63 %	55 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 11
30 Aug	29.4 °C	52 %	50 km/h	0.3 mm	High 21
31 Aug	28.0 °C	65 %	49 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 13
1 Sept	29.3 °C	55 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
2 Sept	29.6 °C	52 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
3 Sept	32.2 °C	48 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
4 Sept	31.5 °C	51 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Sept	29.4 °C	52 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Sept	31.1 °C	50 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 Sept	31.0 °C	49 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
8 Sept	31.1 °C	47 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
9 Sept	31.5 °C	47 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
10 Sept	32.4 °C	43 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
11 Sept	31.2 °C	42 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Sept	30.4 °C	48 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
13 Sept	29.8 °C	50 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
14 Sept	29.1 °C	55 %	52 km/h	0.7 mm	High 23
15 Sept	30.1 °C	49 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
16 Sept	29.5 °C	55 %	51 km/h	0.6 mm	High 24
17 Sept	31.6 °C	45 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
18 Sept	30.1 °C	55 %	55 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
19 Sept	29.0 °C	56 %	54 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
20 Sept	29.8 °C	52 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
21 Sept	30.5 °C	54 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Sept	29.8 °C	54 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
23 Sept	30.6 °C	53 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
24 Sept	30.2 °C	54 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
25 Sept after	32.5 °C	45 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
26 Sept after	31.9 °C	46 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
27 Sept after	31.7 °C	50 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
28 Sept after	32.0 °C	47 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Sept after	32.0 °C	43 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
30 Sept after	32.9 °C	41 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
1 Oct after	32.0 °C	48 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
2 Oct after	31.7 °C	44 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
3 Oct after	30.5 °C	50 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Oct after	32.3 °C	46 %	46 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 · 4 Aug 2026

After · 1 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 11 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 150 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak150 µg/m³

Days over the guideline34 days

PM10156 µg/m³

Optical depth2.70

WHO 15

9101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920

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 · 314Every 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 Merauke fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2026 to 24 September 2026 (45 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 August 2026 to 17 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,343 hectares (123.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Merauke (12,423 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 21 September 2026 → 24 September 2026.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 August 2026 to 17 September 2026. 314 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.

Where it burned