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Aurukun fire, August 2016 Aurukun

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2016, 15:40 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2016 in Aurukun, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,016 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1398th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 334 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
6,016ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
17 Aug 2016 – 24 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
17 Aug
2016
Heat detections
182
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
842MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
49km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Aurukun where it started
    6,039 ha reached on 17 Aug
    0.8 %

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)
17 Aug 31.9 °C 44 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug 32.2 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Aug 31.7 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 32.2 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug 33.1 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug 33.7 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug 33.7 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Aug 33.7 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug after 32.9 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Aug after 34.0 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Aug after 34.1 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Aug after 31.0 °C 46 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Aug after 32.4 °C 39 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Aug after 34.4 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Aug after 33.7 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Sept after 33.9 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept after 34.1 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Sept after 35.7 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2016
After · 31 Aug 2016

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 · 182Every 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 Aurukun fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 August 2016 and 24 August 2016: 8 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 6,016 hectares (60.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aurukun (6,039 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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.