Burned area
satellite only7,337ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 4 Dec 2023 – 15 Dec 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Banana fire, 4 December 2023 Banana
Out · last detection 15 Dec 2023, 03:45 UTC
The fire started on 4 December 2023 in Banana, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,337 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 144th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 102 in Australia in 2023, of 157.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only12days
4 Dec 2023 to 15 Dec 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 15 Dec 2023, 03:45 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only4 Dec 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 4 Dec 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only885MW
Total radiative power on 7 December 2023; hotspots that day: 94.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 7 Dec 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model16.9FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 1.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 4 Dec 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model34.5°C · 24% RH
High of 34.5 °C and minimum humidity of 24% on 4 December 2023; gusts of 54 km/h on 11 December 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 4 Dec 2023 – 15 Dec 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logStart date: 29 November 2023 → 4 December 2023.
-
logStart date: 4 December 2023 → 29 November 2023.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/banana-2023-12-2?v=2026-10-27A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire banana-2023-12-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-12-04 | 28 | 171 | 34.5 | 20 | 24 | 15 | 26.3 | 0 | 16.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-12-05 | 24 | 35 | 31.5 | 21 | 33 | 14.8 | 28.8 | 0.2 | 17.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-12-06 | 45 | 248 | 34.1 | 18.8 | 25 | 15.7 | 34.9 | 0 | 19.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2023-12-07 | 94 | 885 | 34 | 17 | 25 | 18.8 | 38.2 | 0 | 23.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-12-08 | 55 | 379 | 33.8 | 17.6 | 25 | 17.2 | 39.2 | 0 | 23.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-12-09 | 86 | 724 | 32.9 | 18.4 | 28 | 18.3 | 37.1 | 0 | 25.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-12-10 | 28 | 44 | 31.7 | 18.1 | 29 | 24.5 | 52.2 | 0 | 30.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-12-11 | 1 | 3 | 30.5 | 19.5 | 33 | 24.8 | 54.4 | 0.1 | 30.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-12-12 | 6 | 13 | 31.8 | 20 | 32 | 21.6 | 46.1 | 0 | 28.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-12-13 | 36 | 146 | 31.8 | 17.7 | 33 | 17.8 | 37.4 | 0 | 27.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-12-14 | 16 | 263 | 32.5 | 15.6 | 32 | 14.3 | 32.8 | 0 | 25.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-12-15 | 8 | 46 | 34.3 | 20.5 | 33 | 14.4 | 31.7 | 0 | 26.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-12-16 | 0 | 0 | 33.4 | 21.7 | 46 | 16.4 | 40 | 3.3 | 8 | bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 7,337ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 4 Dec 2023 – 15 Dec 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 4 Dec
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 427
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 246MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
4 Dec15 Dec
15 Dec 2023
How it evolved, day by day
4 Dec
7 Dec
10 Dec
13 Dec
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
34°high
54km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 16 Dec.
This area had burned before
22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 240 ha in 2020, 182 ha in 2021, 1,246 ha in 2022.
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
-
Banana where it started7,359 ha0.3 %
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 2025Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Dec | 34.5 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 5 Dec | 31.5 °C | 33 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 6 Dec | 34.1 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 7 Dec | 34.0 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 8 Dec | 33.8 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 9 Dec | 32.9 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 10 Dec | 31.7 °C | 29 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Dec | 30.5 °C | 33 % | 54 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 12 Dec | 31.8 °C | 32 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Dec | 31.8 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Dec | 32.5 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Dec | 34.3 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 16 Dec after | 33.4 °C | 46 % | 40 km/h | 3.3 mm | Low 8 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 16.9, a minimum humidity of 24% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 30.
FWI at the start
16.9
Minimum humidity
24 %
Days without rain
1
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Banana fire, 4 December 2023
7,337 ha
12 days
FWI 16.9
Min. humidity 24 %
Banana fire, December 2018
11,923 ha
15 days
FWI 17.5
Min. humidity 24 %
161 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
North Burnett fire, September 2025
16,614 ha
29 days
FWI 16.1
Min. humidity 25 %
151 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 25 Oct.
Maranoa fire, October 2021
9,010 ha
12 days
FWI 16.7
Min. humidity 25 %
239 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 15.1 mm on 25 Oct.
North Burnett fire, September 2016
6,606 ha
21 days
FWI 13.8
Min. humidity 25 %
70 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.0 mm on 17 Oct.
Banana fire, October 2020
7,117 ha
14 days
FWI 17.8
Min. humidity 20 %
91 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 13 Nov.
What happened to them
- 17 days
- median duration
- 8,384 ha
- median area
- 33 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 1.9 mm
- rain at the end (median; 22 of 30 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (7,337 ha against a median of 8,384 ha) and lasted 12 days, against 17 days.
In 8 of 30, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.9 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
3.3 mmfirst rain
16 Decthe day after it ended
54km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 15 Dec, and on 16 Dec 3.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 22 of 30, with a median of 1.9 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 27 Nov 2023
After · 22 Dec 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 8 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak45 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1065 µg/m³
Optical depth0.78
WHO 15
2 Dec6 Dec10 Dec14 Dec18 Dec
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 · 0Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Banana fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 December 2023 and 15 December 2023: 12 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 7,337 hectares (73.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Banana (7,359 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 30. Their median duration was 17 days and their median area 8,384 ha; 33 % went past 10,000 ha. In 8 of 30, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.9 mm.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 29 November 2023 → 4 December 2023.
- Start date: 4 December 2023 → 29 November 2023.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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. No 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.