Burke fire, 9 December 2021 Burke, Mount Isa
The fire started on 9 December 2021 in Burke, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,274 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 544th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 127 in Australia in 2021, of 460.
- Burnt area
- 13,274ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 9 Dec 2021 – 17 Dec 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 9 Dec
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 408
- in a single hotspot: 147 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.3GW
- 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 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.2 mm on 20 Dec.
This area had burned before
18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 109 ha in 2016, 2,025 ha in 2017, 246 ha in 2018.
What happened to each town
-
Burke where it started13,337 ha reached on 9 Dec0.3 %
-
87 ha reached on 13 Dec0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Dec | 39.0 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 9 Dec | 39.2 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 10 Dec | 38.5 °C | 8 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 11 Dec | 39.0 °C | 3 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 12 Dec | 40.9 °C | 4 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 13 Dec | 42.2 °C | 5 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 14 Dec | 42.1 °C | 12 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 15 Dec | 41.9 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 16 Dec | 41.6 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 50 |
| 17 Dec | 38.4 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Dec after | 39.9 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Dec after | 39.2 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Dec after | 36.0 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 8.2 mm | Low 10 |
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 · 408Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Burke fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 December 2021 and 17 December 2021: 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 13,274 hectares (132.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Burke (13,337 ha, 0.3 %); Mount Isa (87 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, 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.