Armidale fire, August 2026 Armidale, Glen Innes Severn
The fire started on 29 August 2026 in Armidale, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,031 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 84th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 522 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
- Burnt area
- 7,031ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 29 Aug 2026 – 19 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 29 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 354
- in a single hotspot: 108 MW
- Danger at start
- 7
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.1GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.9 mm on 27 Sept.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 394 ha in 2016, 135 ha in 2018, 6,899 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,917 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Armidale where it started6,366 ha reached on 29 Aug0.8 %
-
665 ha reached on 3 Sept0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Aug | 16.1 °C | 45 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 30 Aug | 17.6 °C | 34 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 31 Aug | 17.8 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 1 Sept | 18.5 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 2 Sept | 18.5 °C | 48 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 3 Sept | 22.5 °C | 35 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 4 Sept | 22.0 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 5 Sept | 26.0 °C | 22 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 6 Sept | 23.1 °C | 11 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Sept | 21.2 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 8 Sept | 16.5 °C | 40 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 9 Sept | 19.0 °C | 39 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 10 Sept | 15.4 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 11 Sept | 15.6 °C | 53 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 12 Sept | 16.1 °C | 49 % | 32 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 13 Sept | 18.0 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 14 Sept | 21.2 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 15 Sept | 23.2 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 16 Sept | 21.1 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 17 Sept | 16.2 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 18 Sept | 22.6 °C | 17 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 19 Sept | 25.1 °C | 12 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Sept after | 27.4 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Sept after | 27.2 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Sept after | 20.5 °C | 34 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 23 Sept after | 19.9 °C | 51 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 24 Sept after | 19.5 °C | 51 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 25 Sept after | 20.0 °C | 48 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 26 Sept after | 21.9 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 27 Sept after | 23.5 °C | 44 % | 30 km/h | 12.9 mm | Very low 1 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 6 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 354Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,580 haGlen Innes Severn2 December 2019 · 10 days · 17 km away
- 6,365 haArmidaleDecember 2019 · 5 days · 20 km away
- 43,186 haGlen Innes SevernSeptember 2019 · 25 days · 23 km away
- 111,490 haArmidale2 September 2019 · 16 days · 30 km away
- 12,889 haClarence Valley1 September 2026 · 13 days · 34 km away
- 346,884 haClarence Valley17 October 2019 · 65 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Armidale fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 August 2026 and 19 September 2026: 22 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 7,031 hectares (70.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Armidale (6,366 ha, 0.8 %); Glen Innes Severn (665 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 64 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 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
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
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.