At the time of writing (19th August( no map has been published showing the actual extent of the Abernethy – Glenmore wildfire. Given that such a map would be of wide public interest, I kept an eye on the Copernicus Sentinel-2 L2A satellite imagery, and the one flown on 12/08/2026 was the first occasion when the area of the Abernethy – Glenmore wildfire was largely free of cloud. The only part of the fire boundary obscured was the north-east corner near Carn a’ Chnuic.
The fire boundary was digitised from the Copernicus satellite image, and used to create two maps. One gives the wider context (header of this blog), the other a more detailed view. The maps are available in a Google Drive folder – HERE. (If the folder doesn’t open, right click > copy hyperlink > paste into your browser. If needed, links to the individual maps / files are given at the end). Download the maps to view at full resolution.
In addition this folder contains the Copernicus satellite image with the digitised boundary as an overlay, a READ THIS file (giving some details of how the fire boundary was digitised), and a zip file containing the fire boundary in shapefile format.
The area within the digitised fire boundary is 32.42 km2, considerably larger than the c.25 km2 widely reported elsewhere. The boundary on the maps I created includes lochans and scree slopes, as well as some grasslands and flushes that did not burn. Conversely the north-eastern limit of the fire is not mapped, as the area was obscured by clouds when the satellite image was made.
READ THIS file (pdf) – HERE
Overview map showing location of the fire – HERE
Detailed map of the fire extent – HERE
Copernicus image with fire boundary – HERE
Digitised boundary (shapefile) – HERE
Well done – thanks for looking at this closely. I was just trying to find out this information and couldn’t find an accurate assessment of the extent of the damage anywhere else.
Thanks for the clarifications on area burned Andy, although as you say this is likely to be revised later. It is interesting that the official sources are behind in publishing the extent of the wildfire – my suspicions and paranoia setting in.
One thing which I believe is clear is that the UK needs to redefine what a mega wildfire is in the UK. Currently, (in line with European definitions) a wildfire needs to exceed 10,000 hectares to be defined as a megafire. At the moment the Cairngorms wildfire is only just over 3,000 hectares, if my arithmetic is correct, whilst the Dave Moor fire is recorded at 11,827 hectares. I think most people would agree that the Cairngorm wildfire has been a very serious wildfire, both in area burned and CO2 consumed through peat burning. I believe there needs to be a review of the wildfire area threshold for the UK……. and an additional criterium – the estimated amount of CO2 emitted, which will gather in wildfires where significant quantities of peat have been burned. Will our Governments listen – I doubt it!