Tapanahony fire, September 2026 Suriname
The fire started on 14 September 2026 in Tapanahony, Suriname, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,097 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the largest fire in Sipaliwini since 2016 (of 22 with a page). The largest in Suriname in 2026, of 14.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,097ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 14 Sept 2026 – 9 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 0
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 263
- in a single hotspot: 376 MW
- Danger at start
- 13
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 277MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,825 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,003 ha that had burned before.
- 1,508 ha Patamacca fire, September 2025 1,835 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 965 ha Tapanahony fire, November 2025 1,200 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 787 ha Tapanahony fire, October 2025 1,028 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 564 ha Tapanahony fire, October 2025 1,056 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Sept | 34.5 °C | 43 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 15 Sept | 33.3 °C | 49 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 16 Sept | 34.5 °C | 45 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 17 Sept | 32.2 °C | 59 % | 24 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 18 Sept | 34.2 °C | 43 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 19 Sept | 34.8 °C | 41 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 20 Sept | 34.6 °C | 41 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 21 Sept | 34.2 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 22 Sept | 33.0 °C | 51 % | 22 km/h | 6.6 mm | Very low 2 |
| 23 Sept | 34.5 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 24 Sept | 35.5 °C | 46 % | 28 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 11 |
| 25 Sept | 36.3 °C | 41 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 26 Sept | 35.8 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 27 Sept | 36.5 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Sept | 36.2 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 29 Sept | 34.1 °C | 51 % | 24 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 5 |
| 30 Sept | 34.8 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 1 Oct | 35.0 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 2 Oct | 34.3 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 22 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 263Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,835 haPatamaccaSeptember 2025 · 10 days · 1 km away
- ≈ 518 haApatou October 2026 · 7 days · 1 km away
- 1,200 haTapanahonyNovember 2025 · 21 days · 2 km away
- 1,056 haTapanahony12 October 2025 · 7 days · 3 km away
- 1,028 haTapanahony16 October 2025 · 12 days · 3 km away
- 1,178 haPatamaccaSeptember 2024 · 3 days · 22 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tapanahony fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 September 2026 to 9 October 2026 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 September 2026 to 2 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,097 hectares (31.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Is the Tapanahony fire still active?
- No fire detections since 10 Oct 2026, 17:26 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Suriname (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: 110 · 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.
- Name: Patamacca → Tapanahony.
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
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 19 September 2026 to 2 October 2026. 263 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.
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 (Public Domain). 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.