Skip to content
worldfires
en
ID · Indonesia · –

Ogan Komering Ilir fire, August 2023 Ogan Komering Ilir

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2023, 19:12 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2023 in Ogan Komering Ilir, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 65 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,837 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 7th largest in South Sumatra since 2016 (of 116 with a page). The largest in Indonesia in 2023, of 162.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ogan Komering Ilir · 2019Ogan Komering Ilir · 2019Ogan Komering Ilir · 2019Ogan Komering Ilir · 2019

Burnt area
9,837ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
65days
31 Aug 2023 – 3 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
31 Aug
2023
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Average daily power
13MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug3 Nov
2 Nov 2023

How it evolved, day by day

1 Nov 2023 · 4 MW · 4 2 Nov 2023 · 22 MW · 4
1 Nov 2 Nov

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
45km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 735 ha in 2019.

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. Ogan Komering Ilir where it started
    11,277 ha reached on 1 Nov
    0.6 %

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 area1.4 ha
Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.4 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (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)
31 Aug 33.5 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Sept 33.5 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Sept 33.1 °C 47 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Sept 32.8 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Sept 32.5 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
5 Sept 33.1 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Sept 33.4 °C 53 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
7 Sept 33.6 °C 56 % 29 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 14
8 Sept 33.2 °C 54 % 31 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 16
9 Sept 33.1 °C 57 % 29 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 11
10 Sept 34.4 °C 44 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Sept 34.6 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Sept 33.2 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
13 Sept 33.1 °C 53 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
14 Sept 33.7 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Sept 33.5 °C 46 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
16 Sept 34.1 °C 44 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
17 Sept 34.5 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm High 31
18 Sept 34.1 °C 49 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Sept 33.6 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Sept 33.9 °C 52 % 29 km/h 4.6 mm High 24
21 Sept 33.7 °C 53 % 24 km/h 2.3 mm Low 6
22 Sept 35.8 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
23 Sept 35.2 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Sept 33.5 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
25 Sept 35.3 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Sept 34.3 °C 48 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
27 Sept 35.0 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Sept 35.2 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Sept 35.0 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Sept 34.3 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
1 Oct 35.3 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Oct 35.8 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Oct 35.8 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Oct 34.4 °C 46 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Oct 36.2 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Oct 34.9 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
7 Oct 35.3 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
8 Oct 34.3 °C 53 % 37 km/h 1.0 mm High 26
9 Oct 31.8 °C 63 % 34 km/h 13.1 mm Moderate 15
10 Oct 34.2 °C 50 % 30 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 5
11 Oct 36.1 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 12
12 Oct 35.6 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Oct 35.4 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Oct 35.0 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Oct 35.2 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
16 Oct 35.0 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Oct 36.5 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Oct 34.3 °C 51 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm High 34
19 Oct 33.1 °C 55 % 30 km/h 9.8 mm Moderate 17
20 Oct 30.6 °C 65 % 23 km/h 5.2 mm Very low 1
21 Oct 35.3 °C 48 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9
22 Oct 36.3 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
23 Oct 35.4 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
24 Oct 35.5 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
25 Oct 35.1 °C 46 % 25 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 19
26 Oct 36.0 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 20
27 Oct 36.4 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Oct 35.2 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
29 Oct 37.1 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Oct 35.5 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Oct 34.1 °C 48 % 33 km/h 3.5 mm Low 11
1 Nov 34.8 °C 48 % 28 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 5
2 Nov 35.6 °C 46 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
3 Nov 35.8 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
4 Nov after 36.3 °C 45 % 30 km/h 5.2 mm High 24

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 22.3, a minimum humidity of 48% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 16.

FWI at the start 22.3
Minimum humidity 48 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ogan Komering Ilir fire, September 2019
26,671 ha 35 days FWI 22.6 Min. humidity 47 % 50 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.3 mm on 2 Nov.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

15 days
median duration
2,848 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 16 had it)

It was 3.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 65 days, against 15 days.

Only 4 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.1 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

5.2 mmfirst rain
4 Novthe day after it ended
45km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 3 Nov, and on 4 Nov 5.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 16, with a median of 4.1 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2017.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2023
After · 10 Nov 2023

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 19 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 589 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 253: 17 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak589 µg/m³
Days over the guideline67 days
PM10840 µg/m³
Optical depth5.52
29 Aug12 Sept26 Sept10 Oct24 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 · 8Every 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 Indonesia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ogan Komering Ilir fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 August 2023 and 3 November 2023: 65 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 9,837 hectares (98.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ogan Komering Ilir (11,277 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 16. Their median duration was 15 days and their median area 2,848 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 4 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.1 mm.

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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 11,202 → 9,837 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. 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 8 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.