Mareeba fire, 13 October 2025 Mareeba
The fire started on 13 October 2025 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 39,697 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 133th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 92 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
- Burnt area
- 39,697ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 13 Oct 2025 – 22 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 13 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,455
- in a single hotspot: 251 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 14.9GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 28 Oct.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,857 ha in 2017, 9,260 ha in 2018, 2,560 ha in 2019, 13,214 ha in 2020, 1,837 ha in 2021, 13,579 ha in 2022, 1,045 ha in 2023, 4,312 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 31,819 ha that had burned before.
- 8,289 ha Mareeba fire, October 2022 17,960 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,561 ha Mareeba fire, November 2020 8,666 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,071 ha Mareeba fire, November 2024 6,971 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,364 ha Mareeba fire, October 2022 9,202 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,201 ha Mareeba fire, December 2017 15,511 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,066 ha Mareeba fire, October 2021 9,039 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 324 ha Mareeba fire, October 2022 15,489 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 130 ha Cook fire, October 2018 35,382 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mareeba where it started39,734 ha reached on 13 Oct0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Oct | 36.6 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Oct | 36.7 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Oct | 36.0 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Oct | 36.1 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 13 Oct | 37.7 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 34 |
| 14 Oct | 35.5 °C | 39 % | 52 km/h | 3.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 15 Oct | 36.4 °C | 29 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Oct | 35.6 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 1.8 mm | High 25 |
| 17 Oct | 36.7 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Oct | 37.5 °C | 17 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Oct | 39.8 °C | 10 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 20 Oct | 37.7 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 21 Oct | 37.0 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 22 Oct | 36.8 °C | 16 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 23 Oct after | 38.2 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 24 Oct after | 37.4 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 25 Oct after | 37.9 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Oct after | 38.7 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 27 Oct after | 39.1 °C | 21 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 28 Oct after | 38.0 °C | 30 % | 49 km/h | 4.0 mm | High 23 |
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 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 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 · 1,455Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,960 haMareeba30 October 2022 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 15,511 haMareeba24 December 2017 · 8 days · 16 km away
- 19,026 haMareeba13 October 2025 · 11 days · 20 km away
- 35,382 haCook17 October 2018 · 12 days · 27 km away
- 15,489 haMareeba31 October 2022 · 4 days · 31 km away
- 13,991 haMareeba21 November 2024 · 8 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mareeba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 October 2025 and 22 October 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 39,697 hectares (397.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mareeba (39,734 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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
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.