Burke fire, November 2020 Burke
The fire started on 7 November 2020 in Burke, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,896 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 770th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 111 in Australia in 2020, of 320.
- Burnt area
- 9,896ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 7 Nov 2020 – 13 Nov 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 7 Nov
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 328
- in a single hotspot: 142 MW
- Danger at start
- 60
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 6.2GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 21 Nov.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Burke where it started9,884 ha reached on 7 Nov0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Nov | 38.2 °C | 7 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 8 Nov | 36.2 °C | 11 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 9 Nov | 33.6 °C | 51 % | 43 km/h | 1.2 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Nov | 33.2 °C | 54 % | 48 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 24 |
| 11 Nov | 34.7 °C | 46 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Nov | 32.9 °C | 52 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Nov | 35.1 °C | 44 % | 48 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 14 Nov after | 34.4 °C | 49 % | 41 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Nov after | 36.2 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Nov after | 35.6 °C | 45 % | 36 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Nov after | 36.6 °C | 39 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Nov after | 36.1 °C | 37 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Nov after | 33.0 °C | 51 % | 41 km/h | 4.4 mm | Low 9 |
| 20 Nov after | 34.2 °C | 45 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 23 |
| 21 Nov after | 32.0 °C | 52 % | 43 km/h | 2.6 mm | Low 11 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 328Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 67,865 haBurke24 November 2025 · 15 days · 6 km away
- 140,738 haRoper Gulf19 October 2022 · 24 days · 24 km away
- 36,602 haRoper Gulf2 November 2022 · 17 days · 28 km away
- 65,337 haRoper Gulf15 October 2024 · 15 days · 35 km away
- 22,614 haRoper Gulf20 July 2020 · 15 days · 35 km away
- 22,199 haRoper Gulf13 June 2025 · 24 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Burke fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 November 2020 and 13 November 2020: 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 9,896 hectares (99.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Burke (9,884 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
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.