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Banana fire, 9 November 2016 Banana

Out · last detection 28 Nov 2016, 02:49 UTC

The fire started on 9 November 2016 in Banana, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,600 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1061th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 227 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
7,600ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
9 Nov 2016 – 28 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
9 Nov
2016
Heat detections
593
in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Nov28 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

101113141516171819202122232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
49km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 7 Dec.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Banana where it started
    7,690 ha reached on 10 Nov
    0.3 %

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)
9 Nov 34.4 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
10 Nov 36.9 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Nov 35.6 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Nov 37.6 °C 27 % 49 km/h 1.6 mm High 29
13 Nov 34.2 °C 24 % 39 km/h 1.9 mm High 23
14 Nov 28.2 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Nov 27.2 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Nov 30.5 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Nov 30.4 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Nov 30.5 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Nov 31.1 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Nov 33.0 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Nov 31.6 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Nov 31.1 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Nov 35.3 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Nov 34.5 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Nov 33.1 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Nov 28.3 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
27 Nov 32.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Nov 33.2 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Nov after 33.8 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
30 Nov after 36.2 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
1 Dec after 38.6 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Dec after 40.8 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Dec after 40.8 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Dec after 40.8 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 56
5 Dec after 39.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Dec after 39.9 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 53
7 Dec after 36.6 °C 33 % 34 km/h 1.4 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Nov 2016
After · 5 Dec 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 · 593Every 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 Banana fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 November 2016 and 28 November 2016: 20 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 7,600 hectares (76.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Banana (7,690 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

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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.