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Carpentaria fire, 8 October 2016 Carpentaria, Mareeba

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2016, 04:51 UTC

The fire started on 8 October 2016 in Carpentaria, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,370 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1301th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 300 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
6,370ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
8 Oct 2016 – 10 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
8 Oct
2016
Heat detections
196
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Oct10 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

8910

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
48km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Carpentaria where it started
    6,008 ha reached on 8 Oct
    0.1 %
  2. Mareeba
    386 ha reached on 8 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
1 Oct 38.4 °C 7 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Oct 38.9 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
3 Oct 36.5 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 56
4 Oct 37.5 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Oct 36.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Oct 37.3 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
7 Oct 37.5 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
8 Oct 37.6 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
9 Oct 38.1 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
10 Oct 38.9 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Oct after 37.9 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Oct after 37.2 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
13 Oct after 36.8 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Oct after 37.2 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
15 Oct after 36.6 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Oct after 36.4 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Oct after 34.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Oct after 36.9 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Oct after 39.4 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Oct after 39.5 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Oct 2016
After · 17 Oct 2016

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 · 196Every 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 Carpentaria fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 October 2016 and 10 October 2016: 3 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 6,370 hectares (63.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Carpentaria (6,008 ha, 0.1 %); Mareeba (386 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 48 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.