Burned area
satellite only6,279ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 4 Nov 2026 – 5 Nov 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Mount Isa fire, November 2026 Mount Isa
Dying down · last detection 5 Nov 2026, 16:13 UTC
The fire started on 4 November 2026 in Mount Isa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,279 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
This entry is probably a savanna fire in Australia’s tropical north, not a bushfire like those in the south of the country. Millions of hectares of northern savanna and grassland burn every year: much of it in burns lit on purpose early in the dry season (traditional fire management, parks and cattle stations), the rest in grass fires that return to the same ground every few years. This is our assumption, based on the location; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in October 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Mount Isa · 2022Mount Isa · 2024Mount Isa · 2022
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-06matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only2days
From 4 Nov 2026 to today: still being detected.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 5 Nov 2026, 16:13 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only4 Nov 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 4 Nov 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only70
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 294 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (NOAA-20)
- Date
- 4 Nov 2026 – 5 Nov 2026
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only850MW
Total radiative power on 5 November 2026; hotspots that day: 12.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 5 Nov 2026
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model24.0FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 0.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 4 Nov 2026, local noon
- Model
- ECMWF IFS 0,25° · Open-Meteo.com · provisional
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model41.3°C · 17% RH
High of 41.3 °C and minimum humidity of 17% on 4 November 2026; gusts of 41 km/h on 5 November 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 4 Nov 2026 – 5 Nov 2026
- Model
- ECMWF IFS 0,25° · Open-Meteo.com · provisional
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 6 November 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logPage published (6,279 ha).
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the forecast (provisional until ERA5 arrives)
What was saved on 6 November 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 6,279 ha
- Dates
- 4 Nov 2026 – ongoing
- Name
- Mount Isa
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/mount-isa-2026-11?v=2026-11-06A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire mount-isa-2026-11.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-04 | 58 | 353 | 41.3 | 24 | 17 | 17.4 | 28.4 | 0 | 24 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-11-05 | 12 | 850 | 41.3 | 24.7 | 13 | 21.8 | 41 | 0 | 24.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-11-06 | 0 | 0 | 39.6 | 25.2 | 24 | 19.1 | 31 | 0.6 | 35.6 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ECMWF IFS · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
Is it still active?
No detections since 5 Nov 2026, 16:13 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Burnt area
- 6,279ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 4 Nov 2026 – 5 Nov 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 4 Nov
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 70
- in a single hotspot: 294 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 602MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
4 Nov5 Nov
5 Nov 2026
How it evolved, day by day
4 Nov
5 Nov
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
41°high
41km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,551 ha in 2022, 1,137 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,664 ha that had burned before.
- 2,849 ha Mount Isa fire, September 2022 7,411 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 687 ha Mount Isa fire, October 2024 49,851 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 685 ha Mount Isa fire, September 2022 5,662 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Mount Isa where it started6,335 ha reached on 4 Nov0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Nov | 41.3 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Nov | 41.3 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Nov after | 39.6 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 36 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 28 Oct 2026
After · 5 Nov 2026
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 4 November 2026 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
Optical depth0.35
WHO 15
2345
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 · 70Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mount Isa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 November 2026 and 5 November 2026: 2 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 6,279 hectares (62.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mount Isa (6,335 ha, 0.1 %).
- Is the Mount Isa fire still active?
- No fire detections since 5 Nov 2026, 16:13 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % 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 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 6 November 2026.
- Page published (6,279 ha).
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 70 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.