Fire near Moluques du Nord (ID)

1.78°S, 124.40°E · first detected on 5 October at 18:28

What the satellites measured

This fire was tracked from 5 October at 18:28 to 22 October at 19:49, that is 17 days, through 306 satellite detections. The detected extent reaches 3,513 ha.

Detected extent
3,513 ha
Cumulative power
1,532 MW
Peak power, one pixel
107 MW
VIIRS and MODIS detections
306
Estimated emissions
21.6 kt of carbon
Carbon burnt in the 0.1 degree cells (about 10 km) around the fire, from 5 October 2026 to 21 October 2026. An order-of-magnitude estimate from GFAS (ECMWF, Copernicus CAMS): it also counts neighbouring fires in the same cell. Contains modified Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service information (2026). Published data stop on 21 October 2026.

These four figures cover the polar orbits alone, the ones that measure an area. The pass table below also counts geostationary detections, more frequent but too coarse for geometry, and its power column sums a whole pass where the peak above is that of a single pixel.

“Detected extent” is not “burned area”: it is the union of the ground footprints of the satellite pixels, and a pixel counts in full (375 m for VIIRS, 1 km for MODIS) even when only a forest edge is burning. Compared with press figures it is in practice one and a half to three times the area reported. Detections taken at the edge of the scan swath, too coarse to measure anything at all, are excluded. These figures come from thermal detection and are not an official assessment: only the emergency services and the competent authorities are authoritative.

Replay how the fire spread

The map is framed on this fire's footprint and loads only its detections. The timeline below covers the period in which satellites saw it, from the first to the last detection, with twelve hours before and twenty-four after; the ticks on the bar mark the emergency services' announcements that fall within it. The cursor opens on the most powerful pass, and playback replays the whole fire in about thirty seconds. “1 h” shows what is burning within an hour of the chosen moment : the map then follows the power curve below and empties when it falls. “24 h” stacks twenty-four hours : a fire stays visible between two satellite passes, which come two to four times a day. Both are true, but they say different things.

How the radiative power evolved

One point per satellite pass: the sum of the fire radiative power measured over the fire. This is the curve that says whether the fire eased off or picked up again, which no cumulative figure shows. The window covers 20 days; beyond that, clustering would merge two successive fires in the same place.

Fire dynamics

Loading history…

Satellite passes in detail

PassPower summed over the passDetectionsSensor
22 October at 19:497 MW4N
22 October at 19:1318 MW9N21
22 October at 18:302 MW1N20
22 October at 07:275 MW1N20
21 October at 21:3017 MW3Aqua
21 October at 20:093 MW1N
21 October at 19:3216 MW8N21
21 October at 18:488 MW5N20
21 October at 18:282 MW2N
21 October at 12:4523 MW1Him9
21 October at 12:1545 MW2Him9
21 October at 11:5522 MW1Him9
21 October at 11:4562 MW2Him9
21 October at 11:3572 MW2Him9
21 October at 11:2527 MW1Him9
21 October at 11:1519 MW1Him9
21 October at 11:0558 MW2Him9
21 October at 09:3539 MW1Him9
21 October at 09:25110 MW2Him9
21 October at 07:4612 MW2N20
21 October at 07:2710 MW2N
20 October at 19:499 MW4N21
20 October at 19:0564 MW22N20
20 October at 18:4825 MW7N
20 October at 08:056 MW1N20
20 October at 07:0867 MW10N21
20 October at 02:4531 MW1Him9
20 October at 02:3531 MW1Him9
20 October at 02:2421 MW2Terra
19 October at 19:2677 MW24N20
19 October at 19:0555 MW17N
19 October at 18:2855 MW12N21
19 October at 14:0427 MW3Terra
19 October at 09:3172 MW6Aqua
19 October at 08:0345 MW5N
19 October at 07:27139 MW6N21
19 October at 06:44152 MW7N20
18 October at 21:1532 MW2Aqua
18 October at 19:4329 MW4N20
18 October at 19:2439 MW13N
18 October at 18:4839 MW8N21
18 October at 07:4662 MW3N21
18 October at 07:015 MW1N20
17 October at 19:433 MW2N
17 October at 19:0547 MW19N21
17 October at 18:222 MW1N20
17 October at 14:2336 MW4Terra
17 October at 07:2321 MW3N20
17 October at 02:0710 MW1Terra
16 October at 21:346 MW1Aqua
16 October at 19:261 MW1N21
16 October at 07:219 MW1N
14 October at 19:203 MW2N20
14 October at 19:001 MW1N
13 October at 19:372 MW2N20
13 October at 19:174 MW6N
13 October at 18:411 MW2N21
12 October at 19:007 MW1N21
12 October at 14:2722 MW1Terra
10 October at 07:336 MW2N
9 October at 19:136 MW3N20
9 October at 18:541 MW1N
9 October at 07:1640 MW5N21
9 October at 06:3210 MW2N20
8 October at 19:324 MW4N20
8 October at 19:116 MW5N
8 October at 18:371 MW1N21
8 October at 07:335 MW1N21
7 October at 19:495 MW3N20
7 October at 19:327 MW4N
7 October at 18:544 MW2N21
6 October at 19:499 MW4N
6 October at 19:1317 MW9N21
5 October at 21:1316 MW1Aqua
5 October at 20:096 MW4N
5 October at 19:3214 MW5N21
5 October at 18:4843 MW4N20
5 October at 18:2840 MW3N

8 other fires near Moluques du Nord (ID)

Separate fires, apart in time or in space, not pieces of this one. A single municipality can have several over one summer, and a forest massif often covers more than a hundred square kilometres.

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