2025 was a big year for fire across northern Australia. This graphic shows the full extent of the 10 biggest wildfire events across Australia in 2025.

While much of the attention is usually focused on wildfires in the more populated regions across southern Australia, the fires that burn the most area are further north. The largest was in the Tanami Desert, burning more than 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres), through central Northern Territory. Dozens of lightning strike ignitions coalesced into one enormous conflagration.

The next biggest was through a vast swath of country south of Broome in Western Australia at 1.2m ha (2.9m acres). The combined total, including eight other large fires burnt close to 10 million ha (24.7m acres) in 2025.

Rohan Fisher, Director Landscape Knowledge Visualisation Lab at Charles Darwin University, compiled the summary.

“It’s just a few fires at the wrong time that burn most country. Fire size distribution is fascinating and provides important lessons on how we think about fire behaviour and its management. I am hoping to publish a deeper analysis of this as it relates to our most fire-prone landscapes in the near future,” Fisher said.

UPDATE 4 April 2025 – here is the full report for the 2025 fire year across NAFI burnt area, which covers 80% of the Australian landmass. The 2025 fire year across the North Australia and Rangelands Fire Information (NAFI) mapping region was characterised by extensive fire activity, with a total of 656,125 km² burnt, making it the second largest fire year in the past decade, exceeded only by 2023.

Fisher’s data for this view is from the Northern Australia Fire Information (NAFI) web service, which has struggled to secure ongoing funding in recent years. NAFI was allocated partial funding in the 2026-27 Federal Budget but faces a funding shortfall for 2026-27.

NAFI wants $4.5 million over four years from 2026-27 but the 2026-27 funding allocated is around $300,000 under what it claims it needs to operate reliably.

NAFI covers 80 percent of Australia and is the only fire information service tailored to the bushfire management needs of rural and remote land managers across such a huge area.

Here is a NAFI video animation for the 2025 fire year in Australia.
View and download mp4 videos of fire spread from NAFI maps for 31 regions across Australia. It is a great tool for communicating about northern Australia fire and for close analysis for fire behaviour fans.