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Mackenzie County fire, 20 June 2025 Mackenzie County

Out · last detection 25 Jun 2025, 21:44 UTC

The fire started on 20 June 2025 in Mackenzie County, Canada, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,622 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 93th largest in Alberta since 2016 (of 243 with a page). Number 191 in Canada in 2025, of 669.

Burnt area
5,622ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
20 Jun 2025 – 25 Jun 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Jun
2025
Heat detections
937
in a single hotspot: 260 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
18.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jun 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jun25 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

23°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.1 mm on 26 Jun.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 172 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Mackenzie County where it started
    5,733 ha reached on 19 Jun
    0.1 %

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)
14 Jun 22.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Jun 20.0 °C 49 % 28 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 3
16 Jun 21.4 °C 48 % 19 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 1
17 Jun 22.2 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm Low 7
18 Jun 21.1 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
19 Jun 22.8 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
20 Jun 16.1 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
21 Jun 18.7 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 19
22 Jun 18.3 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Jun 19.0 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jun 22.1 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Jun 22.3 °C 42 % 24 km/h 4.8 mm Very low 3
26 Jun after 21.2 °C 49 % 20 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jun 2025
After · 2 Jul 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 16 June 2025 the air beside the fire reached 604 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 290: 19 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak604 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM10604 µg/m³
Optical depth4.56
1213141516171819202122232425262728
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 · 937Every 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 Canada ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mackenzie County fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 June 2025 and 25 June 2025: 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 5,622 hectares (56.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mackenzie County (5,733 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 22.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Canada (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: 911

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 911.

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 ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.