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Sambas fire, July 2018 Sambas

Out · last measured on 29 Jul 2018

The fire started on 18 July 2018 in Sambas, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,848 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 190th largest in West Kalimantan since 2016 (of 267 with a page). Number 75 in Indonesia in 2018, of 110.

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
1,848ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
18 Jul 2018 – 29 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
18 Jul
2018
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

34°high
33km/h · peak gust
54%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 26.4 mm on 31 Jul.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,596 ha in 2016, 705 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,291 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sambas where it started
    1,861 ha
    0.3 %

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 Jul 33.2 °C 58 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Low 9
19 Jul 34.1 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Low 10
20 Jul 33.8 °C 59 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm Low 10
21 Jul 32.3 °C 65 % 31 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 2
22 Jul 31.2 °C 70 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
23 Jul 34.1 °C 56 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
24 Jul 33.6 °C 61 % 20 km/h 1.9 mm Very low 3
25 Jul 31.8 °C 70 % 20 km/h 6.7 mm Very low 0
26 Jul 31.7 °C 67 % 24 km/h 6.7 mm Very low 0
27 Jul 32.9 °C 63 % 23 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 1
28 Jul 31.1 °C 70 % 26 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 1
29 Jul 30.3 °C 82 % 24 km/h 14.4 mm Very low 0
30 Jul after 31.7 °C 66 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
31 Jul after 27.5 °C 86 % 27 km/h 26.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2018
After · 5 Aug 2018

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 Sambas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2018 and 29 July 2018: 12 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 1,848 hectares (18.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sambas (1,861 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 54 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.
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.