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Burke fire, 2 September 2018 Burke

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

The fire started on 2 September 2018 in Burke, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 47,398 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 111th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 37 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
47,398ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
2 Sept 2018 – 10 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
2 Sept
2018
Heat detections
1,588
in a single hotspot: 203 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
16.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
47km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 15 ha in 2016, 471 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Burke where it started
    47,661 ha reached on 2 Sept
    1.2 %

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)
2 Sept 34.9 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Sept 34.0 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
4 Sept 32.6 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Sept 31.9 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Sept 35.1 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
7 Sept 35.7 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
8 Sept 35.1 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Sept 34.1 °C 7 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
10 Sept 33.0 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
11 Sept after 33.6 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
12 Sept after 33.1 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Sept after 34.9 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
14 Sept after 34.2 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
15 Sept after 35.5 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Sept after 33.1 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
17 Sept after 33.1 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Sept after 34.5 °C 5 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
19 Sept after 34.8 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
20 Sept after 34.3 °C 8 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
21 Sept after 35.0 °C 7 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
22 Sept after 35.1 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
23 Sept after 34.6 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
24 Sept after 33.2 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Sept after 33.6 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
26 Sept after 34.9 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 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 · 1,588Every 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 2 September 2018 and 10 September 2018: 9 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 47,398 hectares (474.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Burke (47,661 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, class Very 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.