Central Desert fire, 22 July 2026 Central Desert
The fire started on 22 July 2026 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 64,549 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 123th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 20 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 64,549ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 22 Jul 2026 – 8 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 22 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,466
- in a single hotspot: 192 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 925MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 14,985 ha in 2017, 66 ha in 2018, 1,699 ha in 2021, 15,912 ha in 2022, 13,561 ha in 2023, 19,004 ha in 2024, 3,076 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 47,490 ha that had burned before.
- 8,671 ha Central Desert fire, September 2024 16,586 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,427 ha Central Desert fire, November 2023 10,211 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,124 ha Central Desert fire, July 2022 6,331 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 645 ha Central Desert fire, October 2021 7,648 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 297 ha Central Desert fire, April 2025 8,622 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Central Desert where it started63,879 ha reached on 22 Jul0.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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 | 23.1 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Jul | 24.5 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Jul | 24.5 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Jul | 24.6 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Jul | 27.2 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Jul | 26.1 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Jul | 23.2 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 25 Jul | 21.5 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Jul | 21.0 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Jul | 21.1 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Jul | 23.8 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 29 Jul | 24.9 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 30 Jul | 25.7 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 31 Jul | 26.8 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Aug | 27.2 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Aug | 28.2 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 Aug | 28.8 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Aug | 28.2 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Aug | 29.3 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 Aug | 29.5 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Aug | 30.0 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Aug | 31.3 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Aug after | 29.5 °C | 22 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 10 Aug after | 27.7 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Aug after | 31.7 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 12 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 13 Aug after | 26.0 °C | 25 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Aug after | 28.8 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Aug after | 31.0 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Aug after | 31.3 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 21 Aug after | 33.5 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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 2 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 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 · 1,466Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 16,586 haCentral DesertSeptember 2024 · 18 days · 17 km away
- 12,259 haCentral Desert30 April 2025 · 13 days · 26 km away
- 16,497 haCentral DesertJune 2025 · 8 days · 32 km away
- 38,990 haCentral Desert30 August 2026 · 27 days · 36 km away
- 20,541 haCentral Desert4 October 2025 · 6 days · 39 km away
- 38,052 haVictoria Daly5 September 2023 · 19 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Central Desert fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 July 2026 and 8 August 2026: 18 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 64,549 hectares (645.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Central Desert (63,879 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,466 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.