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Strathbogie fire, January 2026 Murrindindi, Strathbogie, Mitchell

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2026, 16:05 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2026 in Strathbogie, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 94,840 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Victoria since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 10 in Australia in 2026, of 859.

Burnt area
94,840ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
7 Jan 2026 – 18 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
4
local government areas
Started on
7 Jan
2026
Heat detections
2,889
in a single hotspot: 945 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
100.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan18 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

789101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
76km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 1 Feb.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 763 ha in 2017, 937 ha in 2018, 655 ha in 2019, 579 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,595 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Murrindindi
    45,538 ha reached on 8 Jan
    12 %
  2. Strathbogie where it started
    36,323 ha reached on 7 Jan
    11 %
  3. Mitchell
    8,966 ha reached on 8 Jan
    3.1 %
  4. Mansfield
    4,123 ha reached on 8 Jan
    1.1 %

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)
7 Jan 36.5 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Jan 38.5 °C 15 % 74 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
9 Jan 38.7 °C 13 % 76 km/h 1.4 mm Very high 45
10 Jan 25.7 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
11 Jan 20.6 °C 33 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Jan 27.2 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
13 Jan 27.5 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Jan 27.9 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Jan 26.2 °C 37 % 54 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 20
16 Jan 23.6 °C 43 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Jan 26.7 °C 30 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Jan 26.7 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Jan after 28.7 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
20 Jan after 28.5 °C 35 % 37 km/h 3.4 mm Low 6
21 Jan after 26.3 °C 37 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
22 Jan after 19.9 °C 31 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
23 Jan after 27.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
24 Jan after 32.6 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jan after 34.5 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jan after 35.6 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jan after 37.0 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jan after 29.9 °C 26 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jan after 32.4 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jan after 36.9 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Jan after 34.9 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.4 mm High 35
1 Feb after 20.9 °C 33 % 71 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Dec 2025
After · 25 Jan 2026

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 11 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 161 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 64: 4.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak161 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10163 µg/m³
Optical depth0.91
56789101112131415161718192021
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 · 2,889Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Strathbogie fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 January 2026 and 18 January 2026: 12 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 94,840 hectares (948.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Murrindindi (45,538 ha, 12 %); Strathbogie (36,323 ha, 11 %); Mitchell (8,966 ha, 3.1 %); Mansfield (4,123 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 76 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
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 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.