Burned area
satellite only3,539ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 4 Oct 2018 – 10 Oct 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
PG · Papua New Guinea · –
South Fly District fire, 4 October 2018 South Fly District
Out · last detection 10 Oct 2018, 03:25 UTC
The fire started on 4 October 2018 in South Fly District, Papua New Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,539 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 13th largest in Western Province since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 8 in Papua New Guinea in 2018, of 19.
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-05matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only7days
4 Oct 2018 to 10 Oct 2018: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 10 Oct 2018, 03:25 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only4 Oct 2018
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 4 Oct 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only121
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 182 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 4 Oct 2018 – 10 Oct 2018
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only2,149MW
Total radiative power on 7 October 2018; hotspots that day: 45.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 7 Oct 2018
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model25.6FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 17.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 4 Oct 2018, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model33.9°C · 34% RH
High of 33.9 °C and minimum humidity of 34% on 10 October 2018; gusts of 41 km/h on 4 October 2018.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 4 Oct 2018 – 10 Oct 2018
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 5 November 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logPage published (3,539 ha).
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 5 November 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 3,539 ha
- Dates
- 4 Oct 2018 – 10 Oct 2018
- Name
- South Fly District
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/south-fly-district-2018-10?v=2026-11-05A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire south-fly-district-2018-10.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-10-04 | 1 | 7 | 31.9 | 23.4 | 42 | 17.1 | 41 | 0 | 25.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-05 | 28 | 417 | 33.4 | 21.5 | 27 | 14 | 28.8 | 0 | 26.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-06 | 10 | 79 | 33 | 20.5 | 30 | 14.1 | 33.1 | 0 | 31.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-07 | 45 | 2,149 | 33.6 | 20.9 | 30 | 15.3 | 34.9 | 0 | 33 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-08 | 18 | 418 | 33.3 | 20.6 | 28 | 16.1 | 38.2 | 0 | 35.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-09 | 17 | 197 | 32.7 | 21.2 | 30 | 16.9 | 39.2 | 0 | 33.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-10 | 2 | 10 | 33.9 | 21.4 | 34 | 15.8 | 34.2 | 0 | 34.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-10-11 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 21.8 | 47 | 13.9 | 32.8 | 0 | 30.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-12 | 0 | 0 | 33.4 | 24.8 | 43 | 14.3 | 29.5 | 0 | 29.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-13 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 25.9 | 48 | 9.9 | 25.6 | 0 | 25.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-14 | 0 | 0 | 33.9 | 25.6 | 46 | 15.3 | 32.8 | 0.1 | 24 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-10-15 | 0 | 0 | 33.6 | 25.1 | 51 | 11.7 | 27.7 | 5.7 | 25 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 3,539ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 4 Oct 2018 – 10 Oct 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 4 Oct
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 121
- in a single hotspot: 182 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 468MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
4 Oct10 Oct
10 Oct 2018
How it evolved, day by day
4 Oct
7 Oct
10 Oct
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
34°high
41km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity
It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.7 mm on 15 Oct.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
South Fly District where it started3,562 ha reached on 4 Oct0.1 %
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.
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 Oct | 31.9 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Oct | 33.4 °C | 27 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 6 Oct | 33.0 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Oct | 33.6 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Oct | 33.3 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Oct | 32.7 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Oct | 33.9 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Oct after | 32.0 °C | 47 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 12 Oct after | 33.4 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Oct after | 33.2 °C | 48 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 14 Oct after | 33.9 °C | 46 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Oct after | 33.6 °C | 51 % | 28 km/h | 5.7 mm | High 25 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 25.6, a minimum humidity of 42% and 17 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2018: 4.
FWI at the start
25.6
Minimum humidity
42 %
Days without rain
17
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · South Fly District fire, 4 October 2018
3,539 ha
7 days
FWI 25.6
Min. humidity 42 %
South Fly District fire, October 2018
5,200 ha
9 days
FWI 28.3
Min. humidity 37 %
48 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 23.8 mm on 30 Oct.
South Fly District fire, November 2023
2,436 ha
5 days
FWI 14.6
Min. humidity 46 %
68 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.5 mm on 23 Nov.
South Fly District fire, November 2019
2,431 ha
3 days
FWI 11.0
Min. humidity 41 %
77 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.9 mm on 2 Dec.
South Fly District fire, October 2018
4,524 ha
10 days
FWI 26.5
Min. humidity 54 %
62 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 8.6 mm on 28 Oct.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 4. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
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
5.7 mmfirst rain
15 Oct5 days after it ended
41km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 10 Oct, and on 15 Oct 5.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
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 2018.
- 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 27 Sept 2018
After · 17 Oct 2018
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 121Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,673 haSouth Fly District24 September 2026 · 30 days · 15 km away
- 11,226 haSouth Fly District5 October 2018 · 7 days · 23 km away
- 7,874 haSouth Fly District5 September 2026 · 13 days · 34 km away
- 106,687 haSouth Fly District 15 September 2026 · 52 days · 37 km away
- 7,288 haSouth Fly District6 October 2018 · 10 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the South Fly District fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2018 and 10 October 2018: 7 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 3,539 hectares (35.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered South Fly District (3,562 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Papua New Guinea (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.
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 5 November 2026.
- Page published (3,539 ha).
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
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. 121 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.
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.