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Burke fire, August 2018 Burke

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2018, 04:07 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2018 in Burke, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,336 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 308th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 140 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
20,336ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
29 Aug 2018 – 10 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
29 Aug
2018
Heat detections
689
in a single hotspot: 287 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
52km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 303 ha in 2016, 733 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Burke where it started
    20,339 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.5 %

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)
28 Aug 31.4 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Aug 32.3 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Aug 30.5 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 31.8 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Sept 33.4 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Sept 35.1 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Sept 32.5 °C 16 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Sept 33.6 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
5 Sept 32.1 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Sept 33.1 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Sept 31.2 °C 39 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept 32.6 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Sept 34.1 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
10 Sept 32.8 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
11 Sept after 32.3 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
12 Sept after 31.7 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept after 33.8 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept after 32.0 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept after 35.2 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Sept after 33.6 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
17 Sept after 33.7 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
18 Sept after 33.7 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept after 31.9 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Sept after 33.4 °C 12 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
21 Sept after 34.3 °C 8 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
22 Sept after 32.8 °C 8 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
23 Sept after 32.5 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 50
24 Sept after 32.7 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 50
25 Sept after 31.9 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Sept after 31.2 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Sept after 31.9 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2018
After · 17 Sept 2018

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 · 689Every 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 29 August 2018 and 10 September 2018: 13 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 20,336 hectares (203.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Burke (20,339 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.

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.