How long did the Western Downs fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2025 and 2 October 2025: 8 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 8,577 hectares (85.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Western Downs (8,596 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 40 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.

AU · Australia · 2025-09-25 → 2025-10-02

Western Downs fire, 25 September 2025 Western Downs

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2025, 15:22 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2025 in Western Downs, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,577 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 915th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 588 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.

Burnt area: 8,577ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 25 Sept 2025 – 2 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 25 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 645; in a single hotspot: 185 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 10.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 30 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept2 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

252627282930

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

40km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 17.3 mm on 12 Oct.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 669 ha in 2016, 125 ha in 2017, 1,020 ha in 2018, 1,701 ha in 2019, 236 ha in 2020, 360 ha in 2021, 1,156 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,186 ha that had burned before.

1,156 ha Western Downs fire, February 2023 6,444 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Western Downs where it started

8,596 ha reached on 25 Sept

0.2 %

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)
25 Sept	25.6 °C	15 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Sept	28.8 °C	14 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
27 Sept	28.7 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Sept	31.0 °C	18 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
29 Sept	32.5 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
30 Sept	31.9 °C	20 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
1 Oct	31.1 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
2 Oct	32.0 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Oct after	26.9 °C	11 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
4 Oct after	28.3 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
5 Oct after	29.4 °C	23 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
6 Oct after	31.8 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Oct after	34.0 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
8 Oct after	32.5 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
9 Oct after	32.3 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
10 Oct after	32.1 °C	32 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
11 Oct after	34.6 °C	29 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
12 Oct after	34.1 °C	29 %	27 km/h	17.3 mm	Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Sept 2025

After · 9 Oct 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 28 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1041 µg/m³

Optical depth0.51

WHO 15

232425262728293012345

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 · 645Every 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 Western Downs fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2025 and 2 October 2025: 8 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 8,577 hectares (85.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Western Downs (8,596 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 40 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

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