It is now peak fire season in Australia. In September? That’s news for Australia’s densely populated southerly regions two and half months away from a summer that is predicted to be an active one for bushfire as the El Nino takes hold.

But across the top half of the continent, the picture from the Northern Australia Fire Information shows that there are currently eight active fires with burnt areas larger than 100 square kilometres (38 square miles) across the Northern Territory right now. So, in terms of fire size alone, peak season it is.

The map below shows fires currently burning in the Northern Territory and the area (km2) burnt.

In total, more than 12 million hectares (29 million acres) have burnt across the NT in the last three weeks and the scene is becoming more extreme over the next month, as the north enters its late Dry Season.

Current fire extent numbers are on NAFI.

A few large fires account for the majority of all burnt area, with the 10 largest fires in the NT this year burning 1,837,712 hectares (4.4 million acres).

See the NAFI fire animations here

Rohan Fisher, from Charles Darwin University, notes that most of these bigger fires are in the central parts of the NT, where there is less fuel management.

“I should point out that this is not unusual and not all of these fires are necessarily bad”, he says of his NAFI data. “After years of big wet seasons (wet summers) there is a lot of fuel about. Further north where extensive, Indigenous led, fuel management is done. we don’t see fires of this scale.”

Further south, Queensland firefighters have battled more than 50 fires in recent weeks, with the South Burnett region currently the main point of activity.

And even further south, the Tasmania Fire Service was busy with 60 fires over the last week.