Dava fire, June 2025 Moray, Highland
The fire started on 28 June 2025 in Highland, United Kingdom, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 9,809 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Scotland since 2016 (of 49 with a page). The largest in United Kingdom in 2025, of 12.
- Burnt area
- 9,809ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 28 Jun 2025 – 30 Jun 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Jun
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 372
- in a single hotspot: 142 MW
- Danger at start
- 4
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.9GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 1 Jul.
This area had burned before
12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,156 ha in 2019, 48 ha in 2021, 3 ha in 2022.
What happened to each town
-
Moray where it started4,959 ha reached on 29 Jun2.2 %
-
4,806 ha reached on 28 Jun0.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official 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.
What burned
- Other natural land93 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland4.2 %
- Coniferous forest1.4 %
- Artificial surfaces1.2 %
Protected area affected (EFFIS layer): 9 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Checked against the press
Checked on 29 September 2026We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- 2025 Dava wildfire · Carrbridge and Dava wildfires · Dava Moor fire
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Dava (Moray/Highland 28 June 2025 6,593 ha
- Carrbridge (Highland) 28 June 2025 5,234 ha
- Official area reported: 10,000 ha (the satellite measured 9,809 ha)
Sources
- 2025 Dava wildfire — Wikipedia, 16 August 2026
- Widespread peat carbon losses driven by the 2025 Scottish megafire — Nature Geoscience, 1 July 2026
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jun | 17.5 °C | 46 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 29 Jun | 19.6 °C | 40 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 30 Jun | 22.1 °C | 55 % | 48 km/h | 11.5 mm | Very low 1 |
| 1 Jul after | 17.0 °C | 45 % | 24 km/h | 3.5 mm | Very low 0 |
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 1 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 334 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 172: 11 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 · 372Every 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 Dava fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 28 June 2025 and 30 June 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 9,809 hectares (98.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Moray (4,959 ha, 2.2 %); Highland (4,806 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 22.1 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class Low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of United Kingdom (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: 999 · 112
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 and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. 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 ADM3 (Open Government Licence v3.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.