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Katherine fire, 10 August 2025 Katherine, Roper Gulf, Victoria Daly

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2025, 16:33 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2025 in Katherine, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 138,097 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 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.

It is the 27th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 14 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.

Burnt area
138,097ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
10 Aug 2025 – 25 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
10 Aug
2025
Heat detections
6,050
in a single hotspot: 434 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
62.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
47km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 54,259 ha in 2016, 853 ha in 2017, 49,473 ha in 2018, 5,785 ha in 2019, 4,896 ha in 2020, 62,882 ha in 2021, 29,292 ha in 2022, 6,726 ha in 2023, 43,899 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 125,668 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Katherine where it started
    137,381 ha reached on 7 Aug
    18 %
  2. Roper Gulf
    1,433 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.0 %
  3. Victoria Daly
    228 ha reached on 16 Aug
    0.0 %

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 Aug 30.6 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Aug 30.3 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Aug 31.2 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Aug 32.5 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Aug 32.7 °C 16 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Aug 31.3 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Aug 31.3 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Aug 31.3 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Aug 29.9 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Aug 29.9 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Aug 30.2 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Aug 32.0 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Aug 33.8 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug 35.3 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Aug 35.7 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Aug 36.6 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Aug after 36.3 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Aug after 36.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Aug after 36.4 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Aug after 36.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Aug after 35.8 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
31 Aug after 33.6 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Sept after 33.7 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept after 32.8 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Sept after 31.8 °C 7 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Sept after 34.1 °C 12 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2025
After · 1 Sept 2025

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 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak69 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1069 µg/m³
Optical depth0.62
8910111213141516171819202122232425262728
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 · 6,050Every 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 Katherine fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2025 and 25 August 2025: 16 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 138,097 hectares (1,381.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Katherine (137,381 ha, 18 %); Roper Gulf (1,433 ha, 0.0 %); Victoria Daly (228 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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
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.

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.