Aurukun fire, October 2023 Aurukun
The fire started on 20 October 2023 in Aurukun, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,980 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 353th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 314 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 17,980ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 20 Oct 2023 – 6 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 536
- in a single hotspot: 173 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 7.6GW
- sum of detected power
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 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 11 Nov.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,018 ha in 2016, 7,321 ha in 2017, 12,926 ha in 2018, 8,017 ha in 2019, 8,572 ha in 2020, 9,149 ha in 2021, 7,314 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,962 ha that had burned before.
- 7,743 ha Aurukun fire, September 2018 11,248 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,437 ha Aurukun fire, September 2021 18,717 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,193 ha Cook fire, August 2018 25,955 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,125 ha Aurukun fire, September 2020 6,781 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,348 ha Aurukun fire, September 2022 14,001 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 252 ha Aurukun fire, July 2019 5,047 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 230 ha Aurukun fire, September 2022 6,597 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 140 ha Aurukun fire, October 2016 5,488 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Aurukun where it started18,057 ha reached on 20 Oct2.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Oct | 34.9 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Oct | 35.2 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 22 Oct | 34.4 °C | 32 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 23 Oct | 33.9 °C | 36 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Oct | 33.2 °C | 41 % | 41 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Oct | 35.3 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Oct | 33.9 °C | 34 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Oct | 34.3 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Oct | 36.2 °C | 34 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Oct | 35.5 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 30 Oct | 35.1 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 31 Oct | 35.7 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Nov | 34.8 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 2 Nov | 32.8 °C | 40 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Nov | 36.2 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Nov | 35.6 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 5 Nov | 36.1 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 6 Nov | 35.6 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Nov after | 35.4 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 4.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 8 Nov after | 34.7 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Nov after | 35.6 °C | 33 % | 39 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Nov after | 34.2 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Nov after | 34.2 °C | 39 % | 33 km/h | 2.5 mm | Moderate 15 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 2 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 536Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 18,717 haAurukunSeptember 2021 · 12 days · 13 km away
- 49,808 haCook18 July 2026 · 23 days · 14 km away
- 25,955 haCook31 August 2018 · 23 days · 16 km away
- 27,363 haCook15 October 2016 · 25 days · 20 km away
- 28,131 haAurukun5 August 2023 · 46 days · 30 km away
- 23,763 haAurukun31 October 2016 · 5 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aurukun fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2023 and 6 November 2023: 18 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 17,980 hectares (179.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Aurukun (18,057 ha, 2.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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
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.