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AU · Australia · –

Australia fire, September 2026 Australia

Burning · last detection 5 Nov 2026, 04:23 UTC

The fire started on 21 September 2026 in Australia, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 46 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 142,419 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

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:

This entry is probably a savanna fire in Australia’s tropical north, not a bushfire like those in the south of the country. Millions of hectares of northern savanna and grassland burn every year: much of it in burns lit on purpose early in the dry season (traditional fire management, parks and cattle stations), the rest in grass fires that return to the same ground every few years. This is our assumption, based on the location; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 5 Nov 2026, 04:23 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Burnt area
142,419ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
46days
21 Sept 2026 – 5 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit
0
local government areas
Started on
21 Sept
2026
Heat detections
2,687
in a single hotspot: 514 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
690MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Sept5 Nov
5 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

23 Sept 2026 · 2 MW · 1 25 Sept 2026 · 4 MW · 1 26 Sept 2026 · 83 MW · 7 27 Sept 2026 · 255 MW · 22 28 Sept 2026 · 197 MW · 35 29 Sept 2026 · 135 MW · 18 30 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 1 Oct 2026 · 4 MW · 1 2 Oct 2026 · 317 MW · 48 3 Oct 2026 · 3 MW · 4 4 Oct 2026 · 886 MW · 104 5 Oct 2026 · 462 MW · 35 6 Oct 2026 · 1,877 MW · 79 7 Oct 2026 · 781 MW · 70 8 Oct 2026 · 1,002 MW · 113 9 Oct 2026 · 1,592 MW · 144 10 Oct 2026 · 1,296 MW · 122 11 Oct 2026 · 779 MW · 67 12 Oct 2026 · 479 MW · 65 13 Oct 2026 · 1 MW · 1 14 Oct 2026 · 80 MW · 15 15 Oct 2026 · 13 MW · 1 16 Oct 2026 · 13 MW · 11 17 Oct 2026 · 1,186 MW · 188 18 Oct 2026 · 4,366 MW · 327 19 Oct 2026 · 4,850 MW · 408 20 Oct 2026 · 3,472 MW · 104 21 Oct 2026 · 1,005 MW · 69 22 Oct 2026 · 32 MW · 32 23 Oct 2026 · 164 MW · 37 24 Oct 2026 · 924 MW · 128 25 Oct 2026 · 284 MW · 24 26 Oct 2026 · 201 MW · 21 27 Oct 2026 · 777 MW · 83 28 Oct 2026 · 432 MW · 88 29 Oct 2026 · 704 MW · 60 30 Oct 2026 · 6 MW · 2 31 Oct 2026 · 178 MW · 33 1 Nov 2026 · 108 MW · 20 2 Nov 2026 · 39 MW · 8 3 Nov 2026 · 123 MW · 12 4 Nov 2026 · 127 MW · 18 5 Nov 2026 · 426 MW · 60
23 Sept 3 Oct 12 Oct 19 Oct 30 Oct

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (168 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

39°high
56km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 175 ha in 2016, 31 ha in 2017, 28,803 ha in 2018, 4,242 ha in 2019, 37 ha in 2020, 23,124 ha in 2023, 324 ha in 2024, 10 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 42,780 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned the equivalent of 90% of the area of London (1,424 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
21 Sept 33.2 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
22 Sept 32.1 °C 45 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Sept 32.5 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
24 Sept 33.1 °C 46 % 42 km/h 3.2 mm High 32
25 Sept 34.3 °C 38 % 47 km/h 2.1 mm High 24
26 Sept 34.3 °C 35 % 43 km/h 1.0 mm High 27
27 Sept 34.5 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
28 Sept 32.0 °C 47 % 42 km/h 3.9 mm High 29
29 Sept 33.6 °C 40 % 42 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18
30 Sept 33.9 °C 43 % 40 km/h 3.9 mm High 26
1 Oct 32.5 °C 48 % 48 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 16
2 Oct 32.7 °C 41 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Oct 31.9 °C 41 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
4 Oct 35.8 °C 30 % 56 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
5 Oct 35.8 °C 34 % 50 km/h 0.5 mm High 35
6 Oct 35.5 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Oct 35.7 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Oct 37.4 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Oct 36.7 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Oct 36.3 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Oct 36.7 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Oct 36.1 °C 33 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Oct 37.1 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Oct 37.0 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 38
15 Oct 34.7 °C 41 % 43 km/h 1.4 mm High 36
16 Oct 35.5 °C 34 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Oct 36.4 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
18 Oct 36.8 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
19 Oct 36.2 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 42
20 Oct 37.0 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 44
21 Oct 37.5 °C 34 % 48 km/h 2.1 mm Very high 40
22 Oct 37.0 °C 37 % 44 km/h 2.1 mm High 26
23 Oct 36.5 °C 40 % 42 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 17
24 Oct 37.1 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 13
25 Oct 37.6 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
26 Oct 37.3 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
27 Oct 36.3 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
28 Oct 37.6 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.7 mm High 32
29 Oct 37.2 °C 40 % 46 km/h 2.3 mm High 29
30 Oct 37.8 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
31 Oct 35.4 °C 45 % 47 km/h 3.0 mm High 32
1 Nov 34.9 °C 48 % 37 km/h 2.8 mm Moderate 16
2 Nov 34.8 °C 52 % 29 km/h 5.2 mm Moderate 12
3 Nov 36.2 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm Low 8
4 Nov 36.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Nov 38.6 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 14 Sept 2026
After · 4 Nov 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 8 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 132 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak132 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM10137 µg/m³
Optical depth2.01
19 Sept29 Sept9 Oct19 Oct29 Oct
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 2,687Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Australia fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 September 2026 to 5 November 2026 (46 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 September 2026 to 4 November 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 142,419 hectares (1,424.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Is the Australia fire still active?
Yes: satellites detected fire on 5 Nov 2026, 04:23 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Area: 5,175 → 142,419 ha.
  2. Start date: 26 September 2026 → 21 September 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 000.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 September 2026 to 4 November 2026. 2,687 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
  • Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.