Australia Fires Live — Current Situation and Warnings
Track Australia fires live on the satellite map below, refreshed every half hour. The Australian fire season runs from November to February — precisely when Europe is in winter, and precisely when the bush burns on the largest scale.
Data: Open-Meteo · refreshed every 15 minutes
Where fires occur most often
- New South Wales — the Blue Mountains and the coast north of Sydney. Eucalypt bush burns fiercely and smoke can blanket Sydney itself for days.
- Victoria — Gippsland and the Great Dividing Range, scene of the country's most devastating fires.
- Western Australia — around Perth and the south-west belt, where summer is long and exceptionally dry.
- South Australia — the Adelaide Hills and Kangaroo Island.
- Queensland — an earlier season, shifted by the more tropical climate.
Fire map — Australia
Each dot is a thermal anomaly detected from orbit. Tap a dot for radiative power and the satellite pass time.
Updated —
Satellites pass over a given point a few times a day, so a fire may appear with a delay. Use this to assess the situation — it does not replace official bulletins from national civil protection. Source: NASA FIRMS.
Hotspot statistics — Australia
Fire danger ratings and warnings
Australia uses a unified Fire Danger Rating scale from Moderate through High and Extreme to Catastrophic. The top level means conditions in which even a well-prepared home offers no protection, and leaving early is the only recommended response.
Warnings go out through Emergency Alert, reaching phones in the affected area. Each state also runs its own app and warning service, and those take precedence over any satellite map, including the one below.
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Numbers and practical advice
The emergency number is 000 for fire, ambulance and police. From a mobile, 112 also works, even without your own carrier's coverage. Storms and flooding go to the SES on 132 500.
If you hire a car and head into the bush, remember two things: distances between towns run into hundreds of kilometres, and mobile coverage disappears off the main routes. Save your route and destination offline.
Historical fire data is published by NASA FIRMS.
Wind and weather — Australia
Wind direction and speed decide which way a fire runs. Switch the layer to temperature or humidity to judge the risk.
Strong wind, temperatures above 35 °C and humidity below 30% together are the conditions in which fire spreads fastest.