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Paser fire, 1 September 2026 Paser

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2026, 06:05 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2026 in Paser, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 47 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,531 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.

It is the 13th largest in East Kalimantan since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 150 in Indonesia in 2026, of 988.

Burnt area
7,531ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
47days
1 Sept 2026 – 17 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
1 Sept
2026
Heat detections
187
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Oct 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

13678121314151718192021222324252627282923456810111417

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
47km/h · peak gust
50%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,394 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,726 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Paser where it started
    7,552 ha reached on 1 Sept
    0.7 %

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)
28 Aug 31.0 °C 53 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Aug 31.1 °C 57 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
30 Aug 32.0 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
31 Aug 31.4 °C 60 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Sept 31.4 °C 54 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
2 Sept 31.5 °C 55 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Sept 32.0 °C 53 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
4 Sept 32.0 °C 56 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Sept 31.8 °C 55 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Sept 32.1 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Sept 31.2 °C 62 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
8 Sept 32.0 °C 57 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Sept 31.0 °C 64 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
10 Sept 31.9 °C 57 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Sept 31.6 °C 50 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Sept 31.6 °C 59 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
13 Sept 31.5 °C 57 % 43 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17
14 Sept 31.6 °C 55 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Sept 31.8 °C 51 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
16 Sept 32.4 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Sept 32.4 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Sept 32.3 °C 51 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Sept 32.0 °C 56 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Sept 32.0 °C 57 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Sept 32.0 °C 57 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Sept 32.5 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Sept 32.5 °C 58 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Sept 32.1 °C 59 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Sept 32.2 °C 60 % 27 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
26 Sept 32.2 °C 58 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
27 Sept 32.2 °C 62 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Sept 32.5 °C 57 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Sept 32.2 °C 59 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
30 Sept 32.2 °C 62 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Oct 32.8 °C 55 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
2 Oct 33.3 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Oct 32.7 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Oct 33.3 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Oct 32.5 °C 53 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2026
After · 23 Oct 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 29 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 53 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak53 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM1058 µg/m³
Optical depth2.05
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293012
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 · 187Every 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 Paser fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 September 2026 to 17 October 2026 (47 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 September 2026 to 11 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,531 hectares (75.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paser (7,552 ha, 0.7 %).
Is the Paser fire still active?
No fire detections since 17 Oct 2026, 06:05 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 50 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.