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Paser fire, 26 September 2026 Paser

Out · last detection 11 Oct 2026, 05:33 UTC

The fire started on 26 September 2026 in Paser, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,910 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 64th largest in East Kalimantan since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 685 in Indonesia in 2026, of 988.

Burnt area
1,910ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
26 Sept 2026 – 11 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
26 Sept
2026
Heat detections
20
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
266MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Oct 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Sept11 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

272823456811

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
36km/h · peak gust
38%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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: 22 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Paser where it started
    1,901 ha reached on 27 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
26 Sept 33.7 °C 53 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
27 Sept 34.2 °C 52 % 27 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18
28 Sept 35.5 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
29 Sept 33.2 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
30 Sept 33.8 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
1 Oct 35.2 °C 44 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Oct 36.2 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Oct 34.9 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Oct 35.7 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Oct 35.4 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Sept 2026
After · 18 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 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak61 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1064 µg/m³
Optical depth1.64
242526272829301234
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 · 20Every 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 26 September 2026 to 11 October 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 September 2026 to 8 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,910 hectares (19.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Paser (1,901 ha, 0.2 %).
Is the Paser fire still active?
No fire detections since 11 Oct 2026, 05:33 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 36 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 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.