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Burke fire, 21 July 2026 Burke, Doomadgee

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2026, 03:51 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2026 in Burke, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,513 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1537th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 740 in Australia in 2026, of 859.

Burnt area
5,513ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
21 Jul 2026 – 27 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
21 Jul
2026
Heat detections
84
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
432MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul27 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

212224252627

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

31°high
45km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 271 ha in 2016, 400 ha in 2017, 937 ha in 2018, 279 ha in 2019, 2,310 ha in 2021, 509 ha in 2023, 293 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,767 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Burke where it started
    5,517 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.1 %
  2. Doomadgee
    8 ha
    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)
18 Jul 25.9 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Jul 27.0 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jul 27.0 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jul 28.1 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Jul 29.6 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Jul 30.9 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jul 28.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Jul 26.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul 24.5 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jul 26.5 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jul after 30.4 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Jul after 29.5 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jul after 31.2 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul after 29.1 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Aug after 27.9 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Aug after 29.4 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Aug after 28.4 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug after 28.8 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Aug after 31.1 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug after 30.9 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Aug after 32.3 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug after 32.4 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug after 32.1 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2026
After · 3 Aug 2026

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 22 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 87 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak87 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1088 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
1617181920212223242526272829303112
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 · 84Every 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 Burke fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 July 2026 and 27 July 2026: 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 5,513 hectares (55.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Burke (5,517 ha, 0.1 %); Doomadgee (8 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
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.