Skip to content
worldfires
PG · Papua New Guinea · –

Middle Fly District fire, 15 September 2026 Middle Fly District

Dying down · last detection 5 Nov 2026, 04:23 UTC

The fire started on 15 September 2026 in Middle Fly District, Papua New Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 52 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,848 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:

We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Is it still active?

No detections since 5 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
9,848ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
52days
15 Sept 2026 – 5 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
15 Sept
2026
Heat detections
444
in a single hotspot: 134 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
107MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Sept5 Nov
5 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

15 Sept 2026 · 6 MW · 6 17 Sept 2026 · 12 MW · 3 20 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 22 Sept 2026 · 14 MW · 2 24 Sept 2026 · 6 MW · 1 25 Sept 2026 · 33 MW · 3 26 Sept 2026 · 118 MW · 18 27 Sept 2026 · 7 MW · 3 28 Sept 2026 · 316 MW · 41 29 Sept 2026 · 387 MW · 48 30 Sept 2026 · 122 MW · 16 1 Oct 2026 · 1 MW · 1 2 Oct 2026 · 25 MW · 8 4 Oct 2026 · 101 MW · 9 5 Oct 2026 · 94 MW · 11 6 Oct 2026 · 263 MW · 48 7 Oct 2026 · 923 MW · 43 8 Oct 2026 · 225 MW · 21 10 Oct 2026 · 70 MW · 10 11 Oct 2026 · 274 MW · 38 12 Oct 2026 · 62 MW · 13 14 Oct 2026 · 14 MW · 2 15 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 16 Oct 2026 · 8 MW · 5 17 Oct 2026 · 75 MW · 24 18 Oct 2026 · 23 MW · 5 19 Oct 2026 · 27 MW · 7 21 Oct 2026 · 30 MW · 5 22 Oct 2026 · 2 MW · 3 23 Oct 2026 · 92 MW · 8 24 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 25 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 26 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 27 Oct 2026 · 67 MW · 8 28 Oct 2026 · 7 MW · 1 29 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0 31 Oct 2026 · 36 MW · 5 1 Nov 2026 · 0 MW · 0 2 Nov 2026 · 8 MW · 1 3 Nov 2026 · 11 MW · 1 4 Nov 2026 · 84 MW · 7 5 Nov 2026 · 303 MW · 18
15 Sept 29 Sept 7 Oct 21 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

37°high
44km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.2% of the area of London (98 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

  1. Middle Fly District where it started
    12,265 ha reached on 15 Sept
    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.

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)
15 Sept 31.2 °C 49 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
16 Sept 31.1 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
17 Sept 31.8 °C 49 % 37 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 17
18 Sept 31.4 °C 50 % 42 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 16
19 Sept 31.6 °C 50 % 44 km/h 2.3 mm Low 9
20 Sept 31.5 °C 51 % 36 km/h 1.6 mm Low 9
21 Sept 32.3 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Low 8
22 Sept 32.1 °C 52 % 37 km/h 2.3 mm Low 10
23 Sept 31.3 °C 49 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
24 Sept 32.9 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
25 Sept 33.5 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm High 21
26 Sept 33.3 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
27 Sept 34.9 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Sept 34.4 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Sept 34.4 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Sept 35.0 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
1 Oct 33.2 °C 47 % 37 km/h 3.2 mm High 24
2 Oct 33.2 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 12
3 Oct 32.1 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
4 Oct 33.6 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Oct 36.0 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Oct 35.5 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Oct 35.4 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Oct 36.3 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Oct 35.2 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
10 Oct 36.4 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Oct 36.4 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Oct 36.0 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Oct 35.7 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Oct 34.8 °C 40 % 28 km/h 1.4 mm High 22
15 Oct 34.6 °C 44 % 29 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Oct 35.9 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Oct 35.9 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Oct 35.4 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Oct 35.4 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
20 Oct 36.3 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Oct 37.0 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Oct 36.0 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
23 Oct 35.8 °C 42 % 21 km/h 9.5 mm Moderate 18
24 Oct 36.1 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 4
25 Oct 35.1 °C 49 % 25 km/h 2.8 mm Moderate 12
26 Oct 34.8 °C 45 % 23 km/h 8.7 mm Low 8
27 Oct 33.3 °C 53 % 29 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 2
28 Oct 33.8 °C 47 % 23 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 3
29 Oct 34.2 °C 53 % 26 km/h 6.7 mm Very low 2
30 Oct 34.3 °C 53 % 30 km/h 6.0 mm Very low 1
31 Oct 34.8 °C 43 % 32 km/h 1.8 mm Very low 1
1 Nov 33.7 °C 55 % 24 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 2
2 Nov 33.0 °C 50 % 23 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 1
3 Nov 33.7 °C 53 % 18 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 1
4 Nov 35.1 °C 39 % 23 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 2
5 Nov 35.1 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Sept 2026
After · 5 Nov 2026

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 8 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 348 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 98: 6.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak348 µg/m³
Days over the guideline35 days
PM10356 µg/m³
Optical depth2.75
13 Sept24 Sept5 Oct16 Oct27 Oct
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 · 444Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Papua New Guinea

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Middle Fly District fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 September 2026 to 5 November 2026 (52 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 September 2026 to 4 November 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,848 hectares (98.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Middle Fly District (12,265 ha, 0.2 %).
Is the Middle Fly District fire still active?
No fire detections since 5 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 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Papua New Guinea (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.

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 5 November 2026.
  1. Page published (9,848 ha).

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 September 2026 to 4 November 2026. 444 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.

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.