Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Bundaberg fire, November 2019 Bundaberg

Out · last detection 17 Nov 2019, 04:04 UTC

The fire started on 13 November 2019 in Bundaberg, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,183 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1341th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 628 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
6,183ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
13 Nov 2019 – 16 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
13 Nov
2019
Heat detections
300
in a single hotspot: 202 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
11.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Nov 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Nov16 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
53km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 219 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Bundaberg where it started
    6,162 ha reached on 13 Nov
    1.0 %

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)
13 Nov 32.6 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Nov 29.4 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 16
15 Nov 29.4 °C 53 % 45 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 13
16 Nov 31.0 °C 45 % 45 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 18
17 Nov after 30.1 °C 51 % 52 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
18 Nov after 27.5 °C 56 % 48 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 19
19 Nov after 29.4 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Nov after 30.5 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Nov after 28.5 °C 46 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
22 Nov after 28.1 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Nov after 28.5 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
24 Nov after 28.8 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
25 Nov after 28.4 °C 47 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Nov after 28.3 °C 50 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Nov after 30.4 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Nov 2019
After · 23 Nov 2019

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 · 300Every 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 Bundaberg fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 November 2019 and 16 November 2019: 4 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 6,183 hectares (61.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bundaberg (6,162 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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.

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
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.

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.