Burke fire, 21 September 2025 Burke
The fire started on 21 September 2025 in Burke, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,964 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 354th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 235 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
- Burnt area
- 17,964ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 21 Sept 2025 – 27 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 21 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 308
- in a single hotspot: 341 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.6GW
- 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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,466 ha in 2016, 5,351 ha in 2017, 6,466 ha in 2018, 561 ha in 2020, 8,075 ha in 2021, 2,227 ha in 2022, 9,199 ha in 2023, 1,762 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,595 ha that had burned before.
- 3,894 ha Burke fire, September 2017 9,785 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,886 ha Burke fire, September 2018 7,655 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,729 ha Burke fire, July 2022 10,842 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,678 ha Burke fire, August 2023 231,553 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,214 ha Burke fire, September 2021 7,499 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 74 ha Burke fire, September 2023 6,020 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Burke where it started18,011 ha reached on 22 Sept0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Sept | 33.3 °C | 21 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 22 Sept | 33.1 °C | 12 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 23 Sept | 33.1 °C | 17 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 24 Sept | 33.4 °C | 17 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 25 Sept | 33.6 °C | 12 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 26 Sept | 34.9 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Sept | 33.2 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 28 Sept after | 38.9 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 29 Sept after | 38.6 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 30 Sept after | 37.3 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 1 Oct after | 37.8 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 2 Oct after | 37.7 °C | 20 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Oct after | 37.9 °C | 7 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 4 Oct after | 37.1 °C | 6 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 5 Oct after | 34.7 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 6 Oct after | 36.4 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 7 Oct after | 36.5 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 8 Oct after | 37.0 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 53 |
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 25 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 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 · 308Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 231,553 haBurke22 August 2023 · 53 days · 20 km away
- 16,530 haBurke28 October 2022 · 12 days · 21 km away
- 78,404 haBurke20 July 2026 · 43 days · 27 km away
- 36,354 haBurke11 October 2018 · 23 days · 34 km away
- 26,297 haBurke19 October 2024 · 11 days · 34 km away
- 42,299 haBurke28 October 2025 · 15 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Burke fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 September 2025 and 27 September 2025: 7 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 17,964 hectares (179.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Burke (18,011 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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.