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Burke fire, 16 December 2017 Mount Isa, Burke

Out · last detection 23 Dec 2017, 04:19 UTC

The fire started on 16 December 2017 in Burke, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,289 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 404th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 166 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
16,289ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
16 Dec 2017 – 22 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
16 Dec
2017
Heat detections
433
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Dec22 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
49km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 27 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. Mount Isa
    8,851 ha reached on 16 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Burke where it started
    7,540 ha reached on 16 Dec
    0.2 %

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)
16 Dec 40.4 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Dec 40.7 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Dec 38.9 °C 23 % 41 km/h 1.5 mm High 36
19 Dec 41.6 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Dec 39.4 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Dec 38.7 °C 29 % 37 km/h 5.2 mm Moderate 15
22 Dec 35.6 °C 37 % 43 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 16
23 Dec after 39.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Dec after 36.7 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.7 mm High 24
25 Dec after 40.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Dec after 41.9 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Dec after 42.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 2.3 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Dec 2017
After · 29 Dec 2017

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 · 433Every 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 Burke fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 December 2017 and 22 December 2017: 7 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 16,289 hectares (162.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mount Isa (8,851 ha, 0.2 %); Burke (7,540 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
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.