Mareeba fire, 4 November 2025 Mareeba
The fire started on 4 November 2025 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,600 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1061th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 677 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
The power measured by the satellite is low (20.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 7,600ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 4 Nov 2025 – 7 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 4 Nov
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 154
- in a single hotspot: 21 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 958MW
- 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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 16 Nov.
This area had burned before
84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,086 ha in 2016, 827 ha in 2017, 2,044 ha in 2018, 483 ha in 2019, 1,097 ha in 2021, 2,545 ha in 2022, 1,546 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,382 ha that had burned before.
- 2,134 ha Carpentaria fire, September 2022 29,570 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,025 ha Mareeba fire, September 2016 6,732 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 929 ha Carpentaria fire, October 2018 7,954 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 414 ha Mareeba fire, August 2019 17,986 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 21 ha Carpentaria fire, October 2021 19,376 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mareeba where it started7,631 ha reached on 4 Nov0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Nov | 37.2 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Nov | 37.4 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Nov | 38.0 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Nov | 37.8 °C | 26 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 8 Nov after | 37.7 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Nov after | 36.6 °C | 34 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 10 Nov after | 39.1 °C | 29 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Nov after | 40.0 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Nov after | 40.6 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 13 Nov after | 37.1 °C | 35 % | 43 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Nov after | 33.4 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Nov after | 37.6 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Nov after | 32.8 °C | 53 % | 32 km/h | 2.8 mm | Moderate 11 |
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 9 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 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 · 154Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 29,570 haCarpentaria18 September 2022 · 7 days · 10 km away
- 19,376 haCarpentaria23 October 2021 · 9 days · 17 km away
- 18,492 haCarpentariaAugust 2026 · 5 days · 23 km away
- 17,986 haMareeba23 August 2019 · 8 days · 25 km away
- 35,623 haMareeba28 August 2019 · 14 days · 30 km away
- 93,026 haMareeba 8 October 2026 · 16 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mareeba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 November 2025 and 7 November 2025: 4 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 7,600 hectares (76.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mareeba (7,631 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
- 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.