Croydon fire, 10 October 2025 Croydon, Richmond
The fire started on 10 October 2025 in Croydon, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 121,152 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
It is the 24th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 17 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 121,152ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 35days
- 10 Oct 2025 – 13 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 10 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 4,270
- in a single hotspot: 271 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.4GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 15 Nov.
This area had burned before
51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,050 ha in 2016, 17,084 ha in 2017, 194 ha in 2019, 728 ha in 2020, 24,266 ha in 2021, 3,063 ha in 2022, 11,632 ha in 2023, 5,185 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 62,026 ha that had burned before.
- 15,768 ha Croydon fire, November 2021 22,625 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,940 ha Croydon fire, November 2016 58,423 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,914 ha Richmond fire, November 2023 56,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,304 ha Richmond fire, December 2022 5,368 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,196 ha Croydon fire, October 2024 40,037 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 722 ha Croydon fire, December 2019 5,352 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 438 ha Croydon fire, November 2021 9,054 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 274 ha Croydon fire, October 2024 124,080 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
-
Croydon where it started80,416 ha reached on 10 Oct2.7 %
-
41,611 ha reached on 27 Oct1.6 %
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 were about 0.22 hectares of 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Oct | 37.8 °C | 29 % | 47 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Oct | 39.3 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Oct | 36.7 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Oct | 38.2 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 14 Oct | 37.0 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 3.8 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Oct | 34.3 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 3.9 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 16 Oct | 34.2 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Oct | 36.3 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Oct | 38.5 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 19 Oct | 39.8 °C | 13 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 20 Oct | 40.4 °C | 12 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 21 Oct | 38.4 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 22 Oct | 38.0 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Oct | 39.4 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 24 Oct | 41.1 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 25 Oct | 39.3 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Oct | 39.0 °C | 25 % | 49 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very high 50 |
| 27 Oct | 34.2 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 13.2 mm | Low 6 |
| 28 Oct | 31.3 °C | 46 % | 29 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 29 Oct | 33.9 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Oct | 37.7 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 31 Oct | 39.6 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Nov | 38.3 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 2 Nov | 38.8 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Nov | 32.6 °C | 30 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Nov | 34.7 °C | 31 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Nov | 37.0 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Nov | 38.8 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Nov | 38.3 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Nov | 36.3 °C | 30 % | 55 km/h | 23.2 mm | Low 11 |
| 9 Nov | 30.6 °C | 48 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 10 Nov | 35.1 °C | 18 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Nov | 36.8 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Nov | 37.5 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 13 Nov | 35.7 °C | 20 % | 58 km/h | 4.4 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Nov after | 34.9 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Nov after | 36.4 °C | 33 % | 41 km/h | 1.4 mm | Moderate 21 |
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 21 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 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 · 4,270Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 58,423 haCroydon3 November 2016 · 24 days · 14 km away
- 11,893 haCroydon15 October 2026 · 7 days · 25 km away
- 22,625 haCroydon29 November 2021 · 18 days · 28 km away
- 40,037 haCroydon29 October 2024 · 28 days · 32 km away
- 124,080 haCroydon20 October 2024 · 33 days · 36 km away
- 18,998 haCroydon5 December 2021 · 17 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Croydon fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 October 2025 and 13 November 2025: 35 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 121,152 hectares (1,211.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Croydon (80,416 ha, 2.7 %); Richmond (41,611 ha, 1.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4,270 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.