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Aurukun fire, 5 August 2023 Aurukun

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2023, 04:02 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2023 in Aurukun, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 46 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,131 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 191th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 184 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
28,131ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
46days
5 Aug 2023 – 19 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
5 Aug
2023
Heat detections
1,195
in a single hotspot: 84 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
151MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

20 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

5 Aug 2023 · 2 MW · 2 6 Aug 2023 · 35 MW · 20 7 Aug 2023 · 23 MW · 13 8 Aug 2023 · 144 MW · 39 9 Aug 2023 · 67 MW · 9 10 Aug 2023 · 30 MW · 14 11 Aug 2023 · 48 MW · 22 12 Aug 2023 · 29 MW · 23 13 Aug 2023 · 94 MW · 23 14 Aug 2023 · 231 MW · 34 15 Aug 2023 · 225 MW · 23 16 Aug 2023 · 128 MW · 53 17 Aug 2023 · 91 MW · 47 18 Aug 2023 · 112 MW · 24 19 Aug 2023 · 3 MW · 3 20 Aug 2023 · 195 MW · 25 21 Aug 2023 · 16 MW · 5 22 Aug 2023 · 10 MW · 8 23 Aug 2023 · 117 MW · 28 24 Aug 2023 · 3 MW · 1 25 Aug 2023 · 62 MW · 10 26 Aug 2023 · 141 MW · 23 27 Aug 2023 · 31 MW · 6 28 Aug 2023 · 65 MW · 18 29 Aug 2023 · 67 MW · 18 30 Aug 2023 · 152 MW · 18 31 Aug 2023 · 908 MW · 45 1 Sept 2023 · 291 MW · 38 2 Sept 2023 · 295 MW · 56 3 Sept 2023 · 232 MW · 64 4 Sept 2023 · 361 MW · 58 5 Sept 2023 · 201 MW · 37 6 Sept 2023 · 90 MW · 20 7 Sept 2023 · 1 MW · 1 8 Sept 2023 · 31 MW · 10 9 Sept 2023 · 242 MW · 26 10 Sept 2023 · 510 MW · 33 11 Sept 2023 · 413 MW · 67 12 Sept 2023 · 131 MW · 33 13 Sept 2023 · 213 MW · 46 14 Sept 2023 · 226 MW · 47 15 Sept 2023 · 318 MW · 51 16 Sept 2023 · 85 MW · 16 17 Sept 2023 · 10 MW · 6 18 Sept 2023 · 361 MW · 20 19 Sept 2023 · 12 MW · 3 20 Sept 2023 · 58 MW · 9
5 Aug 12 Aug 19 Aug 26 Aug 31 Aug 2 Sept 9 Sept 16 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
58km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17,422 ha in 2016, 820 ha in 2017, 4,387 ha in 2018, 13,634 ha in 2019, 308 ha in 2020, 3,144 ha in 2021, 11,633 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 25,938 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Aurukun where it started
    28,275 ha reached on 5 Aug
    3.8 %

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)
29 Jul 31.9 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jul 31.1 °C 44 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Jul 31.8 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Aug 31.0 °C 45 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Aug 32.3 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug 30.1 °C 45 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug 31.8 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Aug 30.9 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Aug 30.9 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug 30.2 °C 41 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Aug 31.4 °C 34 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Aug 31.5 °C 37 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug 30.0 °C 42 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Aug 30.8 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Aug 29.3 °C 45 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 30.3 °C 43 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 30.9 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Aug 32.1 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug 33.0 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug 33.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug 33.4 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Aug 33.9 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Aug 31.8 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug 31.2 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Aug 32.4 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug 32.3 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Aug 33.2 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug 32.5 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug 30.8 °C 38 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug 30.0 °C 43 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Aug 32.3 °C 27 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug 33.0 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Aug 33.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Aug 33.5 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 33.6 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Sept 33.2 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Sept 33.6 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Sept 33.5 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Sept 34.1 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Sept 34.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Sept 33.1 °C 50 % 49 km/h 0.9 mm High 29
8 Sept 33.4 °C 46 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
9 Sept 34.1 °C 42 % 58 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
10 Sept 33.6 °C 36 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept 33.5 °C 31 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept 32.4 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept 32.8 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Sept 32.4 °C 31 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Sept 31.9 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept 33.0 °C 27 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Sept 29.7 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Sept 32.5 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Sept 34.9 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept after 34.7 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Sept after 35.7 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Sept after 37.1 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Sept after 34.0 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Sept after 33.3 °C 34 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Sept after 34.0 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Sept after 34.3 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Sept after 33.8 °C 32 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Sept after 34.1 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Sept after 33.5 °C 36 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Sept after 34.3 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Oct after 35.0 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Oct after 34.7 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Oct after 35.8 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Oct after 35.9 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
5 Oct after 34.9 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Oct after 36.0 °C 31 % 46 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 · 29 Jul 2023
After · 26 Sept 2023

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

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 31 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1029 µg/m³
Optical depth0.22
34567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 1,195Every 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 5 August 2023 and 19 September 2023: 46 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 28,131 hectares (281.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aurukun (28,275 ha, 3.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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
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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.