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Barkly fire, 15 July 2025 Barkly

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2025, 15:38 UTC

The fire started on 15 July 2025 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,045 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3451th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 1115 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.

Burnt area
5,045ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
15 Jul 2025 – 27 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Jul
2025
Heat detections
267
in a single hotspot: 110 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jul 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jul27 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021222324252627

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
60km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 47 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,132 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Barkly where it started
    5,068 ha reached on 15 Jul
    0.0 %

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)
15 Jul 30.7 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Jul 26.1 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Jul 25.2 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jul 22.0 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Jul 22.5 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Jul 22.5 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jul 24.3 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jul 29.2 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jul 25.3 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Jul 29.8 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Jul 31.9 °C 31 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
26 Jul 24.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 43
27 Jul 25.0 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jul after 29.7 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Jul after 28.9 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jul after 24.7 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Jul after 19.0 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Aug after 20.6 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Aug after 20.1 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Aug after 22.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Aug after 25.2 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Aug after 28.2 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Aug after 28.2 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jul 2025
After · 3 Aug 2025

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 26 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 51 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak51 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1053 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
131415161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 267Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Barkly fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 July 2025 and 27 July 2025: 13 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 5,045 hectares (50.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Barkly (5,068 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, class Extreme.
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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

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.