Skip to content
worldfires
en
AU · Australia · →

Banana fire, 2 December 2019 Banana, Central Highlands (Qld)

Out · last detection 11 Jan 2020, 03:32 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2019 in Banana, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 41 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 65,950 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 68th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1743 with a page). Number 42 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Banana · 2016Banana · 2017Banana · 2018Banana · 2019

Burnt area
65,950ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
41days
2 Dec 2019 – 11 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
2 Dec
2019
Heat detections
5,315
in a single hotspot: 170 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec11 Jan
11 Jan 2020

How it evolved, day by day

2 Dec 2019 · 356 MW · 36 3 Dec 2019 · 998 MW · 136 4 Dec 2019 · 2,084 MW · 247 5 Dec 2019 · 2,115 MW · 188 6 Dec 2019 · 3,403 MW · 376 7 Dec 2019 · 7,425 MW · 573 8 Dec 2019 · 6,311 MW · 757 9 Dec 2019 · 3,007 MW · 398 10 Dec 2019 · 1,692 MW · 252 11 Dec 2019 · 795 MW · 62 12 Dec 2019 · 587 MW · 230 13 Dec 2019 · 5,322 MW · 193 14 Dec 2019 · 2,461 MW · 297 15 Dec 2019 · 1,599 MW · 189 16 Dec 2019 · 3,267 MW · 304 17 Dec 2019 · 567 MW · 92 18 Dec 2019 · 717 MW · 119 19 Dec 2019 · 724 MW · 74 20 Dec 2019 · 638 MW · 81 21 Dec 2019 · 351 MW · 23 22 Dec 2019 · 410 MW · 50 23 Dec 2019 · 179 MW · 40 24 Dec 2019 · 466 MW · 56 25 Dec 2019 · 9 MW · 8 26 Dec 2019 · 96 MW · 29 27 Dec 2019 · 1,668 MW · 188 29 Dec 2019 · 649 MW · 28 30 Dec 2019 · 144 MW · 69 31 Dec 2019 · 556 MW · 60 1 Jan 2020 · 242 MW · 36 2 Jan 2020 · 237 MW · 20 3 Jan 2020 · 87 MW · 19 4 Jan 2020 · 99 MW · 23 5 Jan 2020 · 49 MW · 11 6 Jan 2020 · 15 MW · 3 8 Jan 2020 · 32 MW · 6 9 Jan 2020 · 183 MW · 14 10 Jan 2020 · 128 MW · 19 11 Jan 2020 · 101 MW · 9
2 Dec 7 Dec 8 Dec 14 Dec 20 Dec 26 Dec 2 Jan 9 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
60km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 15 Jan.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,756 ha in 2016, 5,455 ha in 2017, 373 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 42% of the area of London (660 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Banana where it started
    42,319 ha reached on 2 Dec
    1.5 %
  2. Central Highlands (Qld)
    24,199 ha reached on 3 Dec
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
2 Dec 33.4 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Dec 33.1 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Dec 34.1 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Dec 36.2 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Dec 37.0 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Dec 39.0 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
8 Dec 37.2 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
9 Dec 35.1 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Dec 36.3 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Dec 37.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 50
12 Dec 38.0 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Dec 38.2 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
14 Dec 36.5 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
15 Dec 38.5 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
16 Dec 40.1 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Dec 36.8 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Dec 34.2 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Dec 34.3 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Dec 36.9 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Dec 38.0 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Dec 39.7 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
23 Dec 37.6 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Dec 36.6 °C 26 % 40 km/h 1.2 mm Very high 38
25 Dec 35.8 °C 24 % 60 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 54
26 Dec 32.1 °C 32 % 41 km/h 1.2 mm High 30
27 Dec 32.2 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Dec 32.3 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Dec 32.0 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Dec 33.9 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Dec 35.2 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Jan 35.8 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Jan 36.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Jan 36.3 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Jan 35.7 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Jan 34.2 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Jan 33.3 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 52
7 Jan 32.1 °C 39 % 35 km/h 1.0 mm High 27
8 Jan 34.7 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Jan 36.5 °C 20 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Jan 35.8 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Jan 36.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 45
12 Jan after 34.8 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Jan after 30.9 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.6 mm High 35
14 Jan after 33.4 °C 25 % 53 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
15 Jan after 33.7 °C 27 % 35 km/h 1.9 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Nov 2019
After · 18 Jan 2020

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 · 5,315Every 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 2 December 2019 and 11 January 2020: 41 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 65,950 hectares (659.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Banana (42,319 ha, 1.5 %); Central Highlands (Qld) (24,199 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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. 5,315 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.