Barkly fire, 1 October 2025 Barkly
The fire started on 1 October 2025 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 100,607 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
It is the 57th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 23 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
- Burnt area
- 100,607ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 1 Oct 2025 – 10 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 1 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 2,416
- in a single hotspot: 246 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 30.4GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,987 ha in 2017, 1,962 ha in 2022, 53,007 ha in 2023, 1,242 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 55,495 ha that had burned before.
- 9,295 ha Barkly fire, November 2023 29,802 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,801 ha Barkly fire, November 2023 11,359 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,342 ha Barkly fire, August 2023 12,874 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,864 ha Barkly fire, May 2023 12,160 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,210 ha Barkly fire, December 2023 32,775 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,507 ha Barkly fire, November 2023 8,655 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 491 ha Barkly fire, November 2023 7,854 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 334 ha Barkly fire, August 2023 42,746 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Barkly where it started100,829 ha reached on 1 Oct0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Oct | 37.0 °C | 16 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 2 Oct | 36.7 °C | 19 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 3 Oct | 36.4 °C | 12 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 81 |
| 4 Oct | 35.8 °C | 8 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 78 |
| 5 Oct | 36.6 °C | 6 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 6 Oct | 37.4 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 Oct | 36.4 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 8 Oct | 36.6 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 9 Oct | 38.8 °C | 17 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 10 Oct | 34.4 °C | 39 % | 52 km/h | 9.2 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 11 Oct after | 31.0 °C | 51 % | 35 km/h | 12.8 mm | Very low 4 |
| 12 Oct after | 31.5 °C | 51 % | 40 km/h | 4.1 mm | Low 6 |
| 13 Oct after | 35.3 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 14 Oct after | 37.9 °C | 20 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Oct after | 37.7 °C | 20 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 16 Oct after | 35.8 °C | 35 % | 50 km/h | 3.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 17 Oct after | 38.7 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Oct after | 39.0 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Oct after | 39.0 °C | 16 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Oct after | 40.2 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Oct after | 39.7 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 22 Oct after | 39.2 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 23 Oct after | 39.3 °C | 18 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 24 Oct after | 38.6 °C | 16 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 25 Oct after | 38.7 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 26 Oct after | 37.2 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Oct after | 38.0 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 45 |
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 5 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 70 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 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 · 2,416Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 29,802 haBarkly6 November 2023 · 4 days · 11 km away
- 11,359 haBarkly5 November 2023 · 3 days · 11 km away
- 12,160 haBarkly30 May 2023 · 14 days · 26 km away
- 45,647 haBarkly6 November 2023 · 4 days · 28 km away
- 12,874 haBarkly27 August 2023 · 20 days · 28 km away
- 18,033 haBarklyJune 2024 · 8 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Barkly fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 October 2025 and 10 October 2025: 10 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 100,607 hectares (1,006.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barkly (100,829 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 81, class Very 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
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.