Pekan fire, September 2024 Pekan
The fire started on 18 September 2024 in Pekan, Malaysia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 960 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 33th largest in Pahang since 2016 (of 107 with a page). Number 10 in Malaysia in 2024, of 48.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 960ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 18 Sept 2024 – 25 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 75
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 319MW
- sum of detected power
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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 45.8 mm on 26 Sept.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 520 ha in 2016, 1,434 ha in 2018, 802 ha in 2019, 201 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 945 ha that had burned before.
- 621 ha Pekan fire, March 2018 3,303 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 520 ha Pekan fire, March 2016 6,277 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 385 ha Pekan fire, May 2018 551 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 380 ha Pekan fire, March 2019 505 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 358 ha Pekan fire, July 2018 868 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Pekan where it started967 ha reached on 11 Sept0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Sept | 32.1 °C | 64 % | 44 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very low 1 |
| 19 Sept | 33.0 °C | 61 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 20 Sept | 32.7 °C | 62 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 4 |
| 21 Sept | 30.8 °C | 70 % | 28 km/h | 1.4 mm | Very low 1 |
| 22 Sept | 32.5 °C | 68 % | 23 km/h | 11.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 23 Sept | 31.7 °C | 79 % | 32 km/h | 17.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 24 Sept | 32.3 °C | 76 % | 26 km/h | 6.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 25 Sept | 30.7 °C | 76 % | 22 km/h | 18.2 mm | Very low 0 |
| 26 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 76 % | 26 km/h | 45.8 mm | Very low 0 |
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 24 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 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 · 75Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pekan fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 September 2024 and 25 September 2024: 8 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 960 hectares (9.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pekan (967 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 61 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Malaysia (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: 999
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
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 License). 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.