Burke fire, 12 November 2023 Burke, Mount Isa
The fire started on 12 November 2023 in Burke, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 24,793 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 245th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 215 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.
- Burnt area
- 24,793ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 12 Nov 2023 – 19 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 12 Nov
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 774
- in a single hotspot: 287 MW
- Danger at start
- 9
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 10.2GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 24 Nov.
This area had burned before
38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 325 ha in 2016, 291 ha in 2017, 5,806 ha in 2018, 1,092 ha in 2019, 1,213 ha in 2020, 863 ha in 2021.
What happened to each town
-
Burke where it started20,941 ha reached on 12 Nov0.5 %
-
4,126 ha reached on 14 Nov0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Nov | 34.5 °C | 45 % | 30 km/h | 4.1 mm | Low 9 |
| 12 Nov | 36.1 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 13 Nov | 38.0 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Nov | 38.5 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Nov | 40.3 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Nov | 40.8 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 17 Nov | 39.5 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Nov | 40.7 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Nov | 37.4 °C | 22 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 20 Nov after | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 26 |
| 21 Nov after | 35.3 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Nov after | 37.7 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Nov after | 35.4 °C | 43 % | 32 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 25 |
| 24 Nov after | 27.3 °C | 69 % | 28 km/h | 2.7 mm | Very low 4 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 13 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 774Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,237 haBurkeDecember 2018 · 12 days · 9 km away
- 10,825 haBurke17 November 2023 · 5 days · 22 km away
- 10,679 haBurke10 November 2025 · 4 days · 30 km away
- 13,274 haBurke9 December 2021 · 9 days · 33 km away
- 125,964 haMount Isa20 December 2023 · 19 days · 35 km away
- 16,289 haBurke16 December 2017 · 7 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Burke fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 November 2023 and 19 November 2023: 8 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 24,793 hectares (247.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Burke (20,941 ha, 0.5 %); Mount Isa (4,126 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.