Croydon fire, 10 October 2025 Croydon
The fire started on 10 October 2025 in Croydon, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,924 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1426th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 911 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
- Burnt area
- 5,924ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 10 Oct 2025 – 16 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 10 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 232
- in a single hotspot: 40 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.5GW
- 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
69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 642 ha in 2016, 1,864 ha in 2017, 1,410 ha in 2020, 1,155 ha in 2021, 120 ha in 2023, 723 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,085 ha that had burned before.
- 1,410 ha Croydon fire, December 2020 7,421 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 285 ha Croydon fire, October 2024 9,650 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 66 ha Croydon fire, October 2023 6,262 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 15 ha Croydon fire, October 2023 6,124 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Croydon where it started5,954 ha reached on 10 Oct0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Oct | 38.5 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 41 |
| 11 Oct | 39.0 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Oct | 37.2 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Oct | 40.3 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Oct | 37.9 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 9.9 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 15 Oct | 33.3 °C | 43 % | 28 km/h | 10.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 16 Oct | 36.4 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 17 Oct after | 36.5 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Oct after | 38.7 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Oct after | 40.0 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Oct after | 38.8 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Oct after | 38.7 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Oct after | 38.9 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Oct after | 38.6 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Oct after | 40.0 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Oct after | 39.8 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 Oct after | 39.3 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
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 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 89 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 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 · 232Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Croydon fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 October 2025 and 16 October 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 5,924 hectares (59.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Croydon (5,954 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.