How long did the Merauke fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 October 2026 to 2 November 2026 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 October 2026 to 31 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,314 hectares (93.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Merauke (9,368 ha, 0.2 %).

Is the Merauke fire still active?

No fire detections since 2 Nov 2026, 04:23 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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 → 2026-11-02

Merauke fire, 2 October 2026 Merauke

Dying down · last detection 2 Nov 2026, 04:23 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2026 in Merauke, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,314 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Papua since 2016 (of 358 with a page). Number 115 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1028.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Merauke · 2026 Merauke · 2026 Merauke · 2026

Is it still active?

No detections since 2 Nov 2026, 04:23 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. 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: 9,314ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 32days; 2 Oct 2026 – 2 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 2 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 331; in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 90MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct2 Nov

Play back 2 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

2 Oct 7 Oct 11 Oct 17 Oct 18 Oct 21 Oct 25 Oct 31 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

44km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 3 Nov.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 79 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 5.9% of the area of London (93 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

9,368 ha reached on 2 Oct

0.2 %

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
2 Oct	35.2 °C	30 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Oct	31.2 °C	47 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
4 Oct	34.1 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Oct	36.4 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
6 Oct	36.9 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
7 Oct	37.0 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Oct	37.7 °C	23 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
9 Oct	36.8 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 40
10 Oct	38.0 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
11 Oct	37.8 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
12 Oct	37.7 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
13 Oct	38.0 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
14 Oct	37.1 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.8 mm	High 31
15 Oct	35.8 °C	42 %	28 km/h	2.1 mm	Moderate 16
16 Oct	37.7 °C	25 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Oct	37.4 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
18 Oct	37.7 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
19 Oct	36.9 °C	28 %	37 km/h	0.7 mm	High 35
20 Oct	38.3 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 Oct	38.2 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 41
22 Oct	37.8 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.6 mm	High 35
23 Oct	37.5 °C	38 %	29 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 21
24 Oct	38.3 °C	31 %	32 km/h	1.5 mm	High 23
25 Oct	37.4 °C	37 %	27 km/h	1.5 mm	High 24
26 Oct	36.3 °C	41 %	32 km/h	4.7 mm	Low 8
27 Oct	35.1 °C	45 %	26 km/h	2.6 mm	Low 8
28 Oct	35.3 °C	40 %	30 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 15
29 Oct	36.7 °C	42 %	26 km/h	3.0 mm	Low 8
30 Oct	32.8 °C	61 %	31 km/h	3.2 mm	Very low 4
31 Oct	35.6 °C	40 %	32 km/h	5.3 mm	Very low 4
1 Nov	35.0 °C	44 %	24 km/h	1.6 mm	Low 8
2 Nov	35.0 °C	40 %	31 km/h	4.4 mm	Very low 4
3 Nov after	34.8 °C	49 %	20 km/h	3.3 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Sept 2026

After · 3 Nov 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 3 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 352 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 213: 14 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak352 µg/m³

Days over the guideline8 days

PM10360 µg/m³

Optical depth4.36

WHO 15

301234567

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 · 331Every 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 2 October 2026 to 2 November 2026 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 October 2026 to 31 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,314 hectares (93.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Merauke (9,368 ha, 0.2 %).
Is the Merauke fire still active?: No fire detections since 2 Nov 2026, 04:23 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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 · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

29 October 2026 Area: 8,646 → 9,291 ha.
27 October 2026 Area: 8,031 → 8,646 ha.
25 October 2026 Area: 7,837 → 8,031 ha.

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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 October 2026 to 31 October 2026. 331 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.