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Alpine fire, 31 December 2019 Alpine, Wangaratta

Out · last detection 19 Jan 2020, 04:19 UTC

The fire started on 31 December 2019 in Alpine, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 69,051 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Victoria since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 39 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
69,051ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
31 Dec 2019 – 19 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
31 Dec
2019
Heat detections
6,328
in a single hotspot: 997 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
85.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Dec19 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

3112345678910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
70km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 25.0 mm on 20 Jan.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,978 ha in 2016, 29 ha in 2017, 384 ha in 2018, 2,648 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Alpine where it started
    62,064 ha reached on 31 Dec
    13 %
  2. Wangaratta
    7,184 ha reached on 4 Jan
    2.0 %

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)
31 Dec 29.6 °C 21 % 59 km/h 0.8 mm High 27
1 Jan 29.6 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Jan 32.1 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Jan 34.0 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Jan 37.9 °C 11 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Jan 14.5 °C 60 % 70 km/h 9.2 mm Very low 1
6 Jan 17.9 °C 92 % 35 km/h 6.2 mm Very low 0
7 Jan 29.0 °C 31 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
8 Jan 27.2 °C 41 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
9 Jan 33.0 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Jan 33.2 °C 30 % 62 km/h 5.0 mm Low 6
11 Jan 24.6 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 13
12 Jan 24.6 °C 26 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
13 Jan 28.2 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
14 Jan 30.9 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Jan 29.9 °C 37 % 39 km/h 3.6 mm Very low 3
16 Jan 28.6 °C 29 % 62 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 16
17 Jan 24.1 °C 39 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Jan 27.7 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 13
19 Jan 27.4 °C 45 % 43 km/h 11.6 mm Very low 1
20 Jan after 19.7 °C 73 % 32 km/h 25.0 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Dec 2019
After · 26 Jan 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 6,328Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Alpine fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 December 2019 and 19 January 2020: 20 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 69,051 hectares (690.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Alpine (62,064 ha, 13 %); Wangaratta (7,184 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 70 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

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.