How long did the Yahukimo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 October 2026 and 24 October 2026: 3 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 1,845 hectares (18.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Yahukimo (1,857 ha, 0.1 %).

Is the Yahukimo fire still active?

No fire detections since 24 Oct 2026, 16:37 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

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.

ID · Indonesia · 2026-10-22 → 2026-10-24

Yahukimo fire, October 2026 Yahukimo

Dying down · last detection 24 Oct 2026, 16:37 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2026 in Yahukimo, Indonesia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,845 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 235th largest in Papua since 2016 (of 351 with a page). Number 725 in Indonesia in 2026, of 1007.

Compare with…

Is it still active?

No detections since 24 Oct 2026, 16:37 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. 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.

Burnt area: 1,845ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 3days; 22 Oct 2026 – 24 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; regencies
Started on: 22 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 31; in a single hotspot: 152 MW
Average daily power: 654MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct24 Oct

Play back 24 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

22 Oct 23 Oct 24 Oct

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.2% of the area of London (18 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

Yahukimo where it started

1,857 ha reached on 22 Oct

0.1 %

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.

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 15 Oct 2026

After · 24 Oct 2026

Before After

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 · 31Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Yahukimo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 October 2026 and 24 October 2026: 3 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 1,845 hectares (18.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Yahukimo (1,857 ha, 0.1 %).
Is the Yahukimo fire still active?: No fire detections since 24 Oct 2026, 16:37 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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. 31 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.

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.