Central Desert fire, 26 August 2026 Central Desert, Victoria Daly
The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Central Desert, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 61,625 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 137th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3518 with a page). Number 25 in Australia in 2026, of 908.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 61,625ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 26 Aug 2026 – 8 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 26 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,545
- in a single hotspot: 345 MW
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.7GW
- 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 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 307 ha in 2016, 20,516 ha in 2017, 52 ha in 2019, 1,963 ha in 2021, 15,694 ha in 2022, 25,755 ha in 2023, 17,855 ha in 2024, 174 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 50,067 ha that had burned before.
- 5,517 ha Victoria Daly fire, October 2024 9,534 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,640 ha Central Desert fire, October 2023 9,179 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,626 ha Victoria Daly fire, March 2022 30,066 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,314 ha Victoria Daly fire, October 2024 10,142 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,909 ha Victoria Daly fire, March 2022 9,663 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,801 ha Central Desert fire, October 2023 7,395 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,730 ha Central Desert fire, October 2024 9,722 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,041 ha Central Desert fire, September 2017 11,904 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 started41,986 ha reached on 26 Aug0.2 %
-
19,568 ha reached on 27 Aug0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Aug | 30.4 °C | 32 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 27 Aug | 30.3 °C | 21 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 28 Aug | 30.4 °C | 12 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 29 Aug | 31.3 °C | 15 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 30 Aug | 31.5 °C | 20 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 31 Aug | 30.8 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 1 Sept | 31.5 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 2 Sept | 32.2 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 3 Sept | 32.8 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 4 Sept | 32.2 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 5 Sept | 34.5 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Sept | 34.7 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 7 Sept | 33.7 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Sept | 34.7 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 9 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 10 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 15 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 11 Sept after | 34.6 °C | 14 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 12 Sept after | 34.0 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 13 Sept after | 34.0 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 14 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 13 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 15 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 17 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 16 Sept after | 32.8 °C | 16 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 17 Sept after | 31.9 °C | 18 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 18 Sept after | 32.5 °C | 15 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
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 29 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 168 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 85: 5.7 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 · 1,545Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,259 haCentral Desert28 April 2025 · 17 days · 23 km away
- 30,066 haVictoria Daly26 March 2022 · 20 days · 25 km away
- 11,904 haCentral Desert3 September 2017 · 19 days · 28 km away
- 38,094 haCentral Desert10 September 2017 · 10 days · 31 km away
- 23,690 haVictoria Daly27 August 2026 · 6 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Central Desert fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2026 to 8 September 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 August 2026 to 7 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 61,625 hectares (616.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Central Desert (41,986 ha, 0.2 %); Victoria Daly (19,568 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 26 August 2026 to 7 September 2026. 1,545 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.