Torres fire, 21 September 2026 Australia
The fire started on 21 September 2026 in Torres, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,067 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 837 in Australia in 2026, of 859.
The power measured by the satellite is low (13.4 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
- 5,067ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 21 Sept 2026 – 10 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 0
- local government areas
- Started on
- 21 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 57
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 363MW
- 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 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 175 ha in 2016, 28 ha in 2017, 4,520 ha in 2018, 636 ha in 2019, 2,786 ha in 2023, 324 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,775 ha that had burned before.
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 Sept | 29.2 °C | 58 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 22 Sept | 29.1 °C | 58 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 23 Sept | 29.0 °C | 60 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 24 Sept | 28.9 °C | 61 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 25 Sept | 28.9 °C | 62 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Sept | 30.0 °C | 57 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 27 Sept | 29.9 °C | 55 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Sept | 29.5 °C | 59 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Sept | 30.0 °C | 55 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Sept | 29.4 °C | 64 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 1 Oct | 29.1 °C | 63 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Oct | 28.5 °C | 60 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Oct | 29.9 °C | 51 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Oct | 29.6 °C | 55 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Oct | 29.5 °C | 57 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
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 28 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 20 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 · 57Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Torres fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 September 2026 to 10 October 2026 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 September 2026 to 3 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,067 hectares (50.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Is the Torres fire still active?
- No fire detections since 11 Oct 2026, 03:49 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 51 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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
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.