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Armidale fire, November 2019 Armidale, Inverell

Out · last detection 17 Nov 2019, 15:19 UTC

The fire started on 7 November 2019 in Armidale, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,682 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 44th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 205 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
16,682ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
7 Nov 2019 – 17 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
7 Nov
2019
Heat detections
1,435
in a single hotspot: 867 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
36.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Nov 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Nov17 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
72km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 17.3 mm on 24 Nov.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 360 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Armidale where it started
    13,894 ha reached on 7 Nov
    1.8 %
  2. Inverell
    2,799 ha reached on 7 Nov
    0.3 %

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)
7 Nov 27.1 °C 12 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Nov 25.7 °C 13 % 72 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Nov 16.5 °C 16 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Nov 20.2 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Nov 23.7 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Nov 27.6 °C 14 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Nov 23.0 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Nov 22.9 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Nov 25.9 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Nov 27.2 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Nov 24.3 °C 16 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Nov after 25.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Nov after 28.3 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Nov after 32.0 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Nov after 28.5 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Nov after 28.6 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Nov after 28.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.5 mm High 31
24 Nov after 23.3 °C 52 % 28 km/h 17.3 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Oct 2019
After · 24 Nov 2019

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 · 1,435Every 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 Armidale fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 November 2019 and 17 November 2019: 11 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 16,682 hectares (166.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Armidale (13,894 ha, 1.8 %); Inverell (2,799 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 72 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.

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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.