Barkly fire, 6 August 2026 Barkly
The fire started on 6 August 2026 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 47,151 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 186th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 37 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
- Burnt area
- 47,151ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 6 Aug 2026 – 16 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 6 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,111
- in a single hotspot: 306 MW
- Danger at start
- 52
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 20.9GW
- 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
54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,968 ha in 2017, 1,377 ha in 2019, 16,465 ha in 2023, 8,670 ha in 2024, 236 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 25,680 ha that had burned before.
- 6,927 ha Barkly fire, September 2023 15,598 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,750 ha Barkly fire, October 2024 19,723 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,572 ha Barkly fire, October 2024 5,167 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,262 ha Barkly fire, July 2017 32,481 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,185 ha Barkly fire, August 2017 5,764 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,557 ha Barkly fire, April 2024 54,245 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,488 ha Barkly fire, December 2023 7,361 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 884 ha Barkly fire, September 2023 8,047 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Barkly where it started47,296 ha reached on 6 Aug0.2 %
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 | 28.3 °C | 23 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 5 Aug | 28.4 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 Aug | 28.3 °C | 21 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Aug | 29.7 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Aug | 31.0 °C | 18 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 9 Aug | 32.7 °C | 22 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 10 Aug | 24.7 °C | 18 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 11 Aug | 31.2 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Aug | 28.5 °C | 20 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 13 Aug | 24.3 °C | 24 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 14 Aug | 28.1 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 15 Aug | 30.1 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 16 Aug | 30.4 °C | 17 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 17 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 19 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 20 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Aug after | 33.6 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 22 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 Aug after | 31.3 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 25 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Aug after | 28.7 °C | 29 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 17 % | 41 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 11 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 130 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 99: 6.6 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 · 1,111Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 19,723 haBarkly6 October 2024 · 12 days · 11 km away
- 54,245 haBarkly18 April 2024 · 25 days · 18 km away
- 32,481 haBarkly28 July 2017 · 7 days · 18 km away
- 15,987 haBarkly20 December 2023 · 6 days · 22 km away
- 26,525 haBarkly6 May 2026 · 8 days · 27 km away
- 17,511 haBarkly18 August 2026 · 7 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Barkly fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 August 2026 and 16 August 2026: 11 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 47,151 hectares (471.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Barkly (47,296 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.