Barkly fire, 4 August 2026 Barkly
The fire started on 4 August 2026 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 34,392 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 300th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 64 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
- Burnt area
- 34,392ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 4 Aug 2026 – 11 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 4 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 781
- in a single hotspot: 176 MW
- Danger at start
- 55
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 12.8GW
- 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 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,240 ha in 2016, 1,144 ha in 2017, 1,448 ha in 2019, 84 ha in 2023, 22,417 ha in 2024, 988 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 26,458 ha that had burned before.
- 16,940 ha Barkly fire, April 2024 54,245 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,395 ha Barkly fire, March 2016 5,174 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 988 ha Barkly fire, January 2025 8,206 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 842 ha Barkly fire, April 2024 6,002 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Barkly where it started34,524 ha reached on 4 Aug0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Aug | 27.7 °C | 23 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Aug | 27.9 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Aug | 27.6 °C | 21 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Aug | 29.1 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Aug | 30.4 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 9 Aug | 31.7 °C | 23 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 10 Aug | 24.2 °C | 18 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 11 Aug | 30.6 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 19 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 13 Aug after | 23.5 °C | 24 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 14 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 15 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 18 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 17 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Aug after | 30.4 °C | 27 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 19 Aug after | 31.5 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Aug after | 33.2 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Aug after | 29.3 °C | 31 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
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 10 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 291 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 128: 8.6 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 · 781Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Barkly fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 August 2026 and 11 August 2026: 8 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 34,392 hectares (343.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barkly (34,524 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
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.