Bangka wildfire destroys 305 homes, displaces 500
Three hundred five houses were destroyed after a peatland hotspot ignited beside Dusun Serdang and, in eighty minutes, strong winds drove the flames into the packed wooden homes of Desa Jelutung II.
The hotspot lit at about 15:10 WIB on Saturday, October 10, 2026, beside Dusun Serdang. By roughly 16:30 WIB the fire had entered Desa Jelutung II, Simpang Rimba, South Bangka, Bangka Belitung. Acting head of the Bangka Belitung BPBD Agus Afandi put the speed of that run down to the walls themselves. “The fire spread rapidly through the village because most houses were built with wooden plank walls,” he said on Sunday as quoted by Kompas.com.
Most of the houses used wooden plank construction. They stood close together, so once the wind carried fire off the peatland the planks and short gaps between buildings offered a continuous path. From the first noted heat in the peat to flames moving house to house had taken eighty minutes. What began as a land hotspot was, by half past four, burning inside the settlement.
No deaths were reported. Roughly 1,800 people were affected. About 500 had to leave at once. Approximately 400 families, some 1,600 individuals, lost homes and belongings. Estimated losses ran to around Rp 2 billion, about $111,000. Fifty swallow buildings burned with them. The fire had covered about 8.3 hectares of ground.
Most of those forced out found space with relatives living nearby. Around 50 stayed at two sites close to the burned ground: SD Negeri 7 Simpang Rimba and Al Muhajirin Mosque in Dusun Serdang. Agencies put up evacuation tents and communal kitchens. They distributed food, clean water, clothing and medicines, and offered health services. “A number of aids have been delivered to the affected residents to ensure their survival amid the emergency conditions,” said Agus Sugiyarso, Head of Public Relations for the Bangka Belitung Regional Police.
That ground was peat, an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation that forms where waterlogged, low-oxygen conditions slow the breakdown of plant matter. Beneath the surface, peat holds cavities that must be saturated with water before the fuel stops burning. The organic material can keep burning underground and reignite after surface flames die. Extreme dry-season conditions and limited water supplies made the blaze harder to contain once it left the open peatland.
“The occurrence of forest and land fires in Bangka Belitung is often triggered by human actions, such as clearing land or forests by burning, burning waste without supervision, and carelessly discarding cigarette butts. The fire in Dusun Serdang serves as a lesson and a warning that a single spark can grow and spread uncontrollably during the current extreme dry season,” said Agus Afandi. Inafis teams from the Bangka Belitung Regional Police and South Bangka Police were still investigating the exact ignition. Law enforcement would follow if wrongdoing was found.
Most of the 1,950 forest and land fire incidents logged across 2,150 hectares in Bangka Belitung from January to October 2026 ended inside two hours. “Most of these forest and land fire incidents could actually be extinguished quickly by joint officers within one to two hours,” Agus Afandi stated. The blaze that entered Dusun Serdang did not. Wooden plank walls, strong winds, peat terrain, limited water supplies, and houses packed close together carried the main fire through Saturday evening and night. Joint crews extinguished it only in the early hours of Sunday, October 11, 2026.
The Serdang fire was the first incident this year reported to destroy houses at this scale. Indonesia was already facing its most intense wildfire season in 11 years, with heavy activity on Sumatra and Borneo. By early Sunday the main blaze was down.
Governor Hidayat Arsani inspected the burned site in Dusun Serdang on Sunday. Evacuation facilities, public kitchens, food supplies and medicines were already moving. “Immediately assess the value of residents' losses accurately so that the recovery process of the settlements can be carried out promptly,” Hidayat Arsani stated in a press release.
“We, along with the relevant agencies, continue to tighten surveillance patrols in other fire-prone areas to prevent similar incidents from recurring,” said Agus Sugiyarso. Agencies kept educating the public against clearing land by burning, burning waste without supervision, and discarding cigarette butts carelessly.
“The fire was successfully extinguished on Sunday (11/10/2026) in the early hours. However, hundreds of joint personnel are still cooling the affected areas until now, especially in the peatland,” said Agus Sugiyarso. On Monday, October 12, 2026, those hundreds of joint personnel were still soaking the peatland where the houses of Dusun Serdang had stood.