MacDonnell fire, January 2025 MacDonnell
The fire started on 28 January 2025 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 58,156 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 143th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3496 with a page). Number 54 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
- Burnt area
- 58,156ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 28 Jan 2025 – 6 Feb 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 28 Jan
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 2,298
- in a single hotspot: 194 MW
- Danger at start
- 71
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 35.7GW
- 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 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.1 mm on 13 Feb.
This area had burned before
27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,608 ha in 2017, 368 ha in 2018, 9,887 ha in 2019, 2,111 ha in 2022, 730 ha in 2023, 291 ha in 2024.
- 4,607 ha MacDonnell fire, January 2019 22,193 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,357 ha MacDonnell fire, January 2019 6,039 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 409 ha MacDonnell fire, August 2023 25,838 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 61 ha MacDonnell fire, January 2018 7,774 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
MacDonnell where it started58,072 ha reached on 28 Jan0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jan | 39.3 °C | 12 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 29 Jan | 38.0 °C | 15 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 30 Jan | 37.4 °C | 12 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 31 Jan | 37.5 °C | 10 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 1 Feb | 39.0 °C | 8 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 2 Feb | 38.6 °C | 13 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 3 Feb | 36.4 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 4 Feb | 35.5 °C | 22 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 5 Feb | 35.2 °C | 21 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 6 Feb | 36.2 °C | 20 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 7 Feb after | 35.7 °C | 22 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 8 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 20 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 9 Feb after | 37.2 °C | 16 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 10 Feb after | 39.5 °C | 12 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 11 Feb after | 39.8 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 12 Feb after | 38.8 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.3 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 13 Feb after | 28.6 °C | 46 % | 42 km/h | 13.1 mm | Low 7 |
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 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 81 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 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 · 2,298Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,039 haMacDonnell15 January 2019 · 7 days · 9 km away
- 22,193 haMacDonnell12 January 2019 · 12 days · 18 km away
- 7,774 haMacDonnellJanuary 2018 · 8 days · 27 km away
- 25,838 haMacDonnell9 August 2023 · 8 days · 32 km away
- 7,415 haMacDonnell16 September 2023 · 4 days · 39 km away
- 26,019 haMacDonnell1 March 2023 · 25 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the MacDonnell fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 January 2025 and 6 February 2025: 10 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 58,156 hectares (581.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered MacDonnell (58,072 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very 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
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.