Tablelands fire, 20 October 2025 Tablelands, Cassowary Coast
The fire started on 20 October 2025 in Tablelands, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,898 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 1431th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 920 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.7 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
- 5,898ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 20 Oct 2025 – 28 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 193
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.3GW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 29 Oct.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,652 ha in 2016, 4,141 ha in 2018, 1,666 ha in 2021, 447 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,748 ha that had burned before.
- 4,002 ha Tablelands fire, September 2018 14,025 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,720 ha Tablelands fire, October 2016 6,149 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 43 ha Tablelands fire, October 2016 6,035 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Tablelands where it started5,715 ha reached on 20 Oct0.5 %
-
227 ha reached on 22 Oct0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Oct | 27.1 °C | 54 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 21 Oct | 27.6 °C | 50 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 22 Oct | 28.4 °C | 45 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 23 Oct | 30.5 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 24 Oct | 29.6 °C | 46 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 25 Oct | 30.1 °C | 46 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 26 Oct | 30.9 °C | 47 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 27 Oct | 33.0 °C | 43 % | 29 km/h | 9.8 mm | Very low 1 |
| 28 Oct | 28.7 °C | 65 % | 28 km/h | 30.3 mm | Very low 0 |
| 29 Oct after | 29.9 °C | 51 % | 25 km/h | 2.7 mm | Very low 0 |
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 29 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 193Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,025 haTablelands26 September 2018 · 16 days · 4 km away
- 12,463 haTablelandsJanuary 2018 · 11 days · 28 km away
- 10,858 haTablelandsSeptember 2017 · 15 days · 31 km away
- 24,634 haTablelandsAugust 2023 · 12 days · 36 km away
- 16,684 haCharters Towers8 September 2017 · 10 days · 37 km away
- 12,595 haTablelands12 October 2023 · 17 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tablelands fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2025 and 28 October 2025: 9 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 5,898 hectares (59.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tablelands (5,715 ha, 0.5 %); Cassowary Coast (227 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
- 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.