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Tapin fire, September 2023 Tapin

Out · last measured on 29 Sept 2023

The fire started on 24 September 2023 in Tapin, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,325 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in South Kalimantan since 2016 (of 99 with a page). Number 61 in Indonesia in 2023, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tapin · 2019Hulu Sungai Selatan · 2026Kapuas · 2026Hulu Sungai Utara · 2019

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
2,325ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
24 Sept 2023 – 29 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
regencies
Started on
24 Sept
2023
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

38°high
42km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.4 mm on 9 Oct.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 135 ha in 2017, 83 ha in 2018, 772 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 871 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.5% of the area of London (23 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. Tapin where it started
    2,340 ha
    1.1 %

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)
24 Sept 37.0 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Sept 35.9 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
26 Sept 35.9 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Sept 36.8 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Sept 37.4 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Sept 37.6 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Sept after 36.9 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Oct after 36.3 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Oct after 36.3 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Oct after 36.9 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Oct after 36.8 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Oct after 37.9 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Oct after 36.9 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Oct after 37.4 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
8 Oct after 37.3 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.7 mm High 27
9 Oct after 35.5 °C 47 % 32 km/h 7.4 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Sept 2023
After · 6 Oct 2023

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 23 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 100 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak100 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10144 µg/m³
Optical depth1.74
22232425262728293012
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Indonesia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tapin fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 September 2023 and 29 September 2023: 6 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 2,325 hectares (23.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tapin (2,340 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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.

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.

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.