Aurukun fire, August 2020 Aurukun, Napranum, Cook
The fire started on 25 August 2020 in Aurukun, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,533 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 1254th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 222 in Australia in 2020, of 320.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Aurukun · 2016Aurukun · 2017Cook · 2018Cook · 2019
- Burnt area
- 6,533ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 25 Aug 2020 – 28 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- local government areas
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 190
- in a single hotspot: 64 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 301MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,819 ha in 2016, 2,560 ha in 2017, 3,004 ha in 2018, 2,015 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,894 ha that had burned before.
- 1,895 ha Aurukun fire, August 2016 6,016 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,826 ha Aurukun fire, September 2017 5,412 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,811 ha Cook fire, August 2018 25,955 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 216 ha Cook fire, August 2019 15,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Aurukun where it started6,011 ha reached on 25 Aug0.8 %
-
479 ha reached on 26 Aug0.2 %
-
70 ha reached on 28 Aug0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Aug | 32.1 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Aug | 31.2 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Aug | 31.6 °C | 39 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Aug | 31.8 °C | 33 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Aug | 30.3 °C | 39 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 29 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 50 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 59 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 31 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 37 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 38 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Sept after | 32.8 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Sept after | 31.9 °C | 45 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 6 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 34 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Sept after | 33.6 °C | 36 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 190Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aurukun fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 August 2020 and 28 August 2020: 4 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 6,533 hectares (65.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Aurukun (6,011 ha, 0.8 %); Napranum (479 ha, 0.2 %); Cook (70 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 190 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.