Katherine fire, September 2026 Katherine
The fire started on 15 September 2026 in Katherine, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 57,978 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 144th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3503 with a page). Number 27 in Australia in 2026, of 876.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 57,978ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 15 Sept 2026 – 20 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 15 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,289
- in a single hotspot: 285 MW
- Danger at start
- 59
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.8GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,279 ha in 2016, 409 ha in 2017, 11,624 ha in 2018, 1,511 ha in 2019, 2,714 ha in 2020, 22,261 ha in 2021, 2,906 ha in 2022, 1,210 ha in 2023, 16,096 ha in 2024, 30,894 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 48,875 ha that had burned before.
- 25,654 ha Katherine fire, August 2025 138,097 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13,858 ha Katherine fire, November 2024 32,700 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,844 ha Katherine fire, November 2021 9,320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,874 ha Katherine fire, November 2016 6,548 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,310 ha Katherine fire, November 2021 16,384 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,868 ha Katherine fire, November 2021 41,338 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,430 ha Katherine fire, August 2018 111,224 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 219 ha Katherine fire, May 2022 7,946 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
-
Katherine where it started58,324 ha reached on 15 Sept7.8 %
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 3.8 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Sept | 34.5 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 16 Sept | 34.5 °C | 19 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 17 Sept | 34.2 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 18 Sept | 33.7 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Sept | 33.7 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 20 Sept | 33.8 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Sept after | 34.3 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 22 Sept after | 35.5 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 23 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 24 Sept after | 35.7 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 Sept after | 34.6 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 26 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Sept after | 33.9 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 28 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 1 Oct after | 35.8 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 2 Oct after | 36.1 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 3 Oct after | 35.7 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 4 Oct after | 35.9 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Oct after | 36.0 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
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 18 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 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 · 1,289Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 138,097 haKatherine10 August 2025 · 16 days · 21 km away
- 111,224 haKatherine15 August 2018 · 11 days · 23 km away
- 41,338 haKatherine7 November 2021 · 24 days · 27 km away
- 83,250 haKatherineSeptember 2016 · 17 days · 31 km away
- 57,920 haKatherine30 September 2024 · 8 days · 32 km away
- 42,073 haRoper Gulf5 August 2025 · 11 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Katherine fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 September 2026 and 20 September 2026: 6 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 57,978 hectares (579.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Katherine (58,324 ha, 7.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 49 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 · 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,289 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.