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ID · Indonesia · –

Pesisir Selatan fire, 24 March 2022 Pesisir Selatan

Out · last measured on 12 Apr 2022

The fire started on 24 March 2022 in Pesisir Selatan, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,999 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 4 in Indonesia in 2022, of 7.

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
1,999ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
24 Mar 2022 – 12 Apr 2022
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
24 Mar
2022
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

34°high
41km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 13 Apr.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 614 ha in 2016, 27 ha in 2017, 119 ha in 2018, 656 ha in 2019, 154 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 855 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (20 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Pesisir Selatan where it started
    2,013 ha
    0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
24 Mar 33.2 °C 49 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
25 Mar 32.6 °C 49 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
26 Mar 33.0 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
27 Mar 33.3 °C 54 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
28 Mar 32.3 °C 53 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Mar 33.4 °C 47 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Mar 33.2 °C 51 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
31 Mar 31.4 °C 57 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
1 Apr 33.6 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
2 Apr 34.1 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Apr 33.3 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
4 Apr 34.5 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Apr 32.6 °C 49 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm High 22
6 Apr 33.7 °C 52 % 34 km/h 3.6 mm Moderate 17
7 Apr 28.0 °C 81 % 23 km/h 25.8 mm Very low 0
8 Apr 31.0 °C 65 % 24 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 1
9 Apr 31.7 °C 60 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
10 Apr 31.9 °C 60 % 25 km/h 2.0 mm Low 9
11 Apr 31.9 °C 63 % 27 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 5
12 Apr 32.9 °C 55 % 27 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 3
13 Apr after 33.4 °C 57 % 27 km/h 1.2 mm Low 5

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 10.2, a minimum humidity of 49% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2019: 15.

FWI at the start 10.2
Minimum humidity 49 %
Days without rain 4
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Indragiri Hulu fire, September 2019
3,956 ha 18 days FWI 7.8 Min. humidity 48 % 188 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 23 Sept.

What happened to them

12 days
median duration
2,555 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 15 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,999 ha against a median of 2,555 ha) and lasted 20 days, against 12 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 5.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.2 mmfirst rain
13 Aprthe day after it ended
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 Apr, and on 13 Apr 1.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 15, with a median of 5.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2019.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Mar 2022
After · 19 Apr 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in Indonesia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pesisir Selatan fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 March 2022 and 12 April 2022: 20 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 1,999 hectares (20.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pesisir Selatan (2,013 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 41 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 Indonesia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2019 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 12 days and their median area 2,555 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 5.2 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.