How long did the Tablelands fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2025 and 31 October 2025: 11 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 22,839 hectares (228.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (17,532 ha, 0.3 %); Tablelands (5,489 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

AU · Australia · 2025-10-21 → 2025-10-31

Tablelands fire, 21 October 2025 Mareeba, Tablelands

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2025, 03:45 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2025 in Tablelands, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,839 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 276th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 172 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.

Burnt area: 22,839ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 21 Oct 2025 – 31 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 21 Oct; 2025
Heat detections: 733; in a single hotspot: 184 MW
Danger at start: 46; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 12.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 28 Oct 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct31 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2122232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

44km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,467 ha in 2016, 118 ha in 2017, 1,560 ha in 2019, 475 ha in 2020, 312 ha in 2022, 437 ha in 2023, 1 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,910 ha that had burned before.

886 ha Mareeba fire, December 2019 7,482 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mareeba

17,532 ha reached on 22 Oct

0.3 %
Tablelands where it started

5,489 ha reached on 21 Oct

0.5 %

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)
21 Oct	34.5 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Oct	35.8 °C	19 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Oct	36.6 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
24 Oct	37.0 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
25 Oct	37.5 °C	17 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
26 Oct	36.6 °C	21 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
27 Oct	35.3 °C	28 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Oct	33.0 °C	36 %	31 km/h	3.8 mm	Moderate 13
29 Oct	33.9 °C	39 %	29 km/h	0.2 mm	High 22
30 Oct	34.3 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
31 Oct	33.8 °C	37 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
1 Nov after	35.9 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
2 Nov after	36.9 °C	18 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
3 Nov after	33.0 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
4 Nov after	33.7 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 41
5 Nov after	32.0 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
6 Nov after	34.3 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
7 Nov after	32.7 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
8 Nov after	33.0 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
9 Nov after	32.4 °C	35 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
10 Nov after	35.0 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.4 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Oct 2025

After · 7 Nov 2025

Before After

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 23 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM1057 µg/m³

Optical depth0.80

WHO 15

19202122232425262728293031123

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 · 733Every 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

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tablelands fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2025 and 31 October 2025: 11 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 22,839 hectares (228.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (17,532 ha, 0.3 %); Tablelands (5,489 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned