Aurukun fire, October 2026 Aurukun
The fire started on 15 October 2026 in Aurukun, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,695 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1488th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1744 with a page). Number 742 in Australia in 2026, of 898.
Compare with…
Is it still active?
No detections since 29 Oct 2026, 04:51 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
- 5,695ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 15 Oct 2026 – 29 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 15 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 83
- in a single hotspot: 49 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 77MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 94 ha in 2016, 195 ha in 2017, 3,376 ha in 2018, 1,061 ha in 2019, 462 ha in 2020, 1,937 ha in 2021, 1,749 ha in 2022, 2,476 ha in 2023, 3,465 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,400 ha that had burned before.
- 3,068 ha Aurukun fire, October 2018 15,864 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 206 ha Aurukun fire, August 2022 79,582 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 93 ha Aurukun fire, October 2016 23,763 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 86 ha Aurukun fire, September 2017 5,165 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 39 ha Aurukun fire, August 2023 28,131 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Aurukun where it started5,727 ha reached on 15 Oct0.8 %
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.
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Oct | 36.7 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 16 Oct | 36.2 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 1.2 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Oct | 36.8 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Oct | 36.3 °C | 36 % | 38 km/h | 2.9 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 19 Oct | 35.8 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 1.4 mm | High 25 |
| 20 Oct | 35.4 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Oct | 36.5 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 1.7 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Oct | 36.5 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Oct | 36.0 °C | 39 % | 34 km/h | 2.5 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 24 Oct | 36.3 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 5.4 mm | Low 7 |
| 25 Oct | 36.9 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 3.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 26 Oct | 37.3 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 2.7 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 27 Oct | 36.3 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 3.9 mm | Low 7 |
| 28 Oct | 37.1 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 29 Oct | 38.0 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
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 17 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 83Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 28,131 haAurukun4 August 2023 · 48 days · 14 km away
- 23,763 haAurukun31 October 2016 · 7 days · 14 km away
- 68,368 haAurukunAugust 2026 · 79 days · 20 km away
- 79,582 haAurukunAugust 2022 · 34 days · 29 km away
- 25,955 haCook24 August 2018 · 37 days · 33 km away
- 26,910 haCook11 October 2016 · 12 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aurukun fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 October 2026 to 29 October 2026 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 October 2026 to 28 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,695 hectares (57.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Aurukun (5,727 ha, 0.8 %).
- Is the Aurukun fire still active?
- No fire detections since 29 Oct 2026, 04:51 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 29 October 2026.
- Page published (5,695 ha).
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
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 15 October 2026 to 28 October 2026. 83 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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.