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Pelalawan fire, 11 August 2026 Pelalawan

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2026, 18:41 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2026 in Pelalawan, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,968 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Riau since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 401 in Indonesia in 2026, of 988.

Burnt area
2,968ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
11 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
11 Aug
2026
Heat detections
392
in a single hotspot: 164 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112151617181920212223242527

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
35km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Pelalawan where it started
    2,988 ha reached on 11 Aug
    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)
4 Aug 33.1 °C 58 % 26 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 1
5 Aug 33.8 °C 56 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 4
6 Aug 32.2 °C 62 % 25 km/h 5.7 mm Very low 0
7 Aug 34.8 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
8 Aug 33.9 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
9 Aug 33.0 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
10 Aug 32.5 °C 53 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
11 Aug 33.0 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
12 Aug 32.8 °C 51 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
13 Aug 32.5 °C 52 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
14 Aug 33.3 °C 51 % 26 km/h 1.3 mm Low 7
15 Aug 34.2 °C 52 % 25 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 5
16 Aug 29.1 °C 81 % 17 km/h 9.4 mm Very low 0
17 Aug 33.2 °C 58 % 27 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 1
18 Aug 33.6 °C 58 % 23 km/h 0.9 mm Very low 3
19 Aug 33.7 °C 54 % 26 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 2
20 Aug 34.2 °C 49 % 32 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 3
21 Aug 34.8 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
22 Aug 34.7 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
23 Aug 34.5 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
24 Aug 34.2 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
25 Aug 33.8 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
26 Aug 32.8 °C 53 % 24 km/h 4.2 mm Very low 2
27 Aug 34.5 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.5 mm Low 10
28 Aug 34.1 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
29 Aug after 34.5 °C 47 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
30 Aug after 33.7 °C 54 % 23 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 13
31 Aug after 32.8 °C 57 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
1 Sept after 33.5 °C 56 % 29 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 4
2 Sept after 35.6 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 15
3 Sept after 34.4 °C 42 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
4 Sept after 34.4 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Sept after 34.2 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
6 Sept after 33.7 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
7 Sept after 34.0 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
8 Sept after 34.3 °C 45 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
9 Sept after 33.8 °C 51 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Sept after 31.9 °C 68 % 16 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2026
After · 4 Sept 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 16 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 527 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 203: 14 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak527 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM10535 µg/m³
Optical depth2.30
910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031
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 · 392Every 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 Pelalawan fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 August 2026 and 28 August 2026: 18 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 2,968 hectares (29.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pelalawan (2,988 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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.