Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Aurukun fire, September 2019 Cook, Aurukun, Napranum

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2019, 03:30 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2019 in Aurukun, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,604 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 474th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 236 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
14,604ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
2 Sept 2019 – 15 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
2 Sept
2019
Heat detections
470
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2345678910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
52km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,575 ha in 2016, 3,584 ha in 2017, 5,677 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,790 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook
    6,355 ha reached on 3 Sept
    0.1 %
  2. Aurukun where it started
    6,318 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.8 %
  3. Napranum
    1,980 ha reached on 9 Sept
    1.0 %

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)
28 Aug 30.8 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Aug 30.5 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Aug 31.2 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug 31.4 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Sept 31.6 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 31.3 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Sept 30.6 °C 29 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept 30.7 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Sept 30.5 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Sept 31.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Sept 31.0 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Sept 31.5 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept 31.5 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept 31.7 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Sept 29.9 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Sept 28.6 °C 42 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept 30.3 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept 30.6 °C 34 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept 31.0 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept after 31.6 °C 33 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Sept after 32.2 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept after 33.5 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Sept after 33.1 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Sept after 31.1 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Sept after 32.4 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Sept after 33.2 °C 33 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Sept after 32.6 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Sept after 32.7 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Sept after 32.9 °C 30 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Sept after 32.8 °C 34 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Aug 2019
After · 22 Sept 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 · 470Every 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 2 September 2019 and 15 September 2019: 14 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 14,604 hectares (146.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cook (6,355 ha, 0.1 %); Aurukun (6,318 ha, 0.8 %); Napranum (1,980 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.