How long did the Ararat fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 December 2024 to 3 January 2025 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 December 2024 to 31 December 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 60,047 hectares (600.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ararat (28,939 ha, 6.9 %); Northern Grampians (19,111 ha, 3.3 %); Southern Grampians (12,133 ha, 1.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Australia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

AU · Australia · 2024-12-17 → 2025-01-03

Ararat fire, December 2024 Ararat, Northern Grampians, Southern Grampians

Out · last detection 3 Jan 2025, 14:45 UTC

The fire started on 17 December 2024 in Ararat, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 60,047 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 10th largest in Victoria since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 23 in Australia in 2024, of 636.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Southern Grampians · 2025

Burnt area: 60,047ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 17 Dec 2024 – 3 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit: 3; local government areas
Started on: 17 Dec; 2024
Heat detections: 3,901; in a single hotspot: 711 MW
Danger at start: 4; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 6.2GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Dec3 Jan

Play back 3 Jan 2025

How it evolved, day by day

17 Dec 20 Dec 23 Dec 25 Dec 26 Dec 29 Dec 1 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

80km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.7 mm on 6 Jan.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 903 ha in 2018, 782 ha in 2019, 907 ha in 2021, 924 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 38% of the area of London (600 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

Ararat where it started

28,939 ha reached on 17 Dec

6.9 %
Northern Grampians

19,111 ha reached on 20 Dec

3.3 %
Southern Grampians

12,133 ha reached on 18 Dec

1.8 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area6.2 ha

Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 6.2 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
17 Dec	21.2 °C	35 %	53 km/h	3.5 mm	Very low 4
18 Dec	22.4 °C	35 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
19 Dec	28.6 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
20 Dec	29.9 °C	24 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
21 Dec	21.3 °C	36 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
22 Dec	20.7 °C	37 %	59 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 20
23 Dec	16.2 °C	43 %	55 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 18
24 Dec	23.9 °C	40 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
25 Dec	31.0 °C	22 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
26 Dec	31.5 °C	13 %	80 km/h	2.4 mm	High 33
27 Dec	19.2 °C	34 %	49 km/h	0.4 mm	High 24
28 Dec	19.1 °C	53 %	59 km/h	2.0 mm	Low 6
29 Dec	21.3 °C	44 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
30 Dec	25.2 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
31 Dec	26.0 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
1 Jan	22.1 °C	44 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
2 Jan	21.9 °C	31 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
3 Jan	28.6 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
4 Jan after	33.6 °C	12 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
5 Jan after	33.7 °C	15 %	50 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 47
6 Jan after	20.7 °C	52 %	51 km/h	10.7 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Dec 2024

After · 10 Jan 2025

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 21 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1077 µg/m³

Optical depth0.76

WHO 15

1516171819202122232425262728293031123

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)

Detections table · 3,901Every 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

66,968 haSouthern GrampiansJanuary 2025 · 13 days · 18 km away

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ararat fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 December 2024 to 3 January 2025 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 December 2024 to 31 December 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 60,047 hectares (600.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ararat (28,939 ha, 6.9 %); Northern Grampians (19,111 ha, 3.3 %); Southern Grampians (12,133 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Australia (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: 000 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 31 December 2024 → 3 January 2025.

RSS Changes to this page

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 000.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 December 2024 to 31 December 2024. 3,901 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.

Where it burned