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Seruyan fire, 1 September 2026 Seruyan

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2026, 05:53 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2026 in Seruyan, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,642 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 167th largest in Central Kalimantan since 2016 (of 318 with a page). Number 475 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1021.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Seruyan · 2023Seruyan · 2026Seruyan · 2026Seruyan · 2026

Burnt area
2,642ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
1 Sept 2026 – 23 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
1 Sept
2026
Heat detections
87
in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
31MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept23 Sept
23 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

1 Sept 2026 · 2 MW · 1 2 Sept 2026 · 20 MW · 1 5 Sept 2026 · 7 MW · 2 6 Sept 2026 · 26 MW · 2 8 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 11 Sept 2026 · 75 MW · 8 12 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 13 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 14 Sept 2026 · 54 MW · 12 15 Sept 2026 · 14 MW · 6 16 Sept 2026 · 27 MW · 3 17 Sept 2026 · 2 MW · 1 18 Sept 2026 · 4 MW · 2 19 Sept 2026 · 26 MW · 7 20 Sept 2026 · 61 MW · 9 21 Sept 2026 · 38 MW · 5 22 Sept 2026 · 182 MW · 23 23 Sept 2026 · 20 MW · 2
1 Sept 6 Sept 12 Sept 15 Sept 18 Sept 21 Sept 22 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

33°high
52km/h · peak gust
44%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 30 Sept.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 157 ha in 2018, 1,906 ha in 2019, 1,976 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,023 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.7% of the area of London (26 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. Seruyan where it started
    2,662 ha reached on 1 Sept
    0.2 %

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 2025
Built-up area0.29 ha
Residents≈ 70

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.29 hectares of built-up land and about 70 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
1 Sept 31.8 °C 49 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Sept 31.3 °C 52 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
3 Sept 31.5 °C 55 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept 31.4 °C 56 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Sept 31.2 °C 56 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Sept 31.0 °C 57 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Sept 31.3 °C 59 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
8 Sept 31.9 °C 56 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Sept 31.6 °C 56 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
10 Sept 32.4 °C 54 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Sept 32.3 °C 52 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Sept 31.6 °C 54 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Sept 31.9 °C 61 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Sept 31.3 °C 57 % 51 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
15 Sept 31.4 °C 56 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Sept 31.8 °C 53 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Sept 31.2 °C 57 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
18 Sept 32.9 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Sept 33.2 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Sept 32.8 °C 48 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Sept 31.4 °C 57 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Sept 32.6 °C 52 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Sept 33.0 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Sept after 32.0 °C 55 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Sept after 31.5 °C 61 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
26 Sept after 32.5 °C 63 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
27 Sept after 32.3 °C 57 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
28 Sept after 32.4 °C 54 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 23
29 Sept after 32.9 °C 55 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Sept after 30.8 °C 70 % 37 km/h 1.5 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2026
After · 30 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 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 291 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 129: 8.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak291 µg/m³
Days over the guideline27 days
PM10295 µg/m³
Optical depth4.39
30311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526
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 · 87Every 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 Seruyan fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 September 2026 to 23 September 2026 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 September 2026 to 23 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,642 hectares (26.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Seruyan (2,662 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.

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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 September 2026 to 23 September 2026. 87 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 2025, 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.