How long did the MacDonnell fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2025 and 29 September 2025: 5 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 8,778 hectares (87.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered MacDonnell (8,746 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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.

AU · Australia · 2025-09-25 → 2025-09-29

MacDonnell fire, 25 September 2025 MacDonnell

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2025, 15:41 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2025 in MacDonnell, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,778 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1709th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 573 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.

Burnt area: 8,778ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 5days; 25 Sept 2025 – 29 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 25 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 142; in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start: 57; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 2.0GW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept29 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

26272829

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

49km/h · peak gust

4%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2021, 3,258 ha in 2022, 1,324 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,939 ha that had burned before.

139 ha MacDonnell fire, October 2023 5,042 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

MacDonnell where it started

8,746 ha reached on 26 Sept

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)
25 Sept	28.8 °C	6 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
26 Sept	31.2 °C	6 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
27 Sept	33.3 °C	5 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
28 Sept	34.0 °C	7 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 68
29 Sept	35.3 °C	4 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 74
30 Sept after	33.2 °C	11 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
1 Oct after	33.0 °C	11 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
2 Oct after	34.0 °C	11 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
3 Oct after	31.3 °C	15 %	50 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 70
4 Oct after	34.4 °C	12 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
5 Oct after	35.9 °C	7 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
6 Oct after	37.3 °C	4 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
7 Oct after	38.5 °C	7 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 70
8 Oct after	39.7 °C	12 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 88
9 Oct after	37.9 °C	16 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Sept 2025

After · 6 Oct 2025

Before After

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 1 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak50 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1089 µg/m³

Optical depth0.82

WHO 15

232425262728293012

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 · 142Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the MacDonnell fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2025 and 29 September 2025: 5 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 8,778 hectares (87.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered MacDonnell (8,746 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned