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Carpentaria fire, 1 October 2018 Carpentaria, Cook, Kowanyama

Out · last detection 3 Oct 2018, 03:55 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2018 in Carpentaria, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,261 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 1115th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 583 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
7,261ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
1 Oct 2018 – 3 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
1 Oct
2018
Heat detections
271
in a single hotspot: 215 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct3 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

123

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
46km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,171 ha in 2016, 497 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,506 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Carpentaria where it started
    4,715 ha reached on 1 Oct
    0.1 %
  2. Cook
    2,002 ha reached on 1 Oct
    0.0 %
  3. Kowanyama
    552 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
1 Oct 36.6 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
2 Oct 37.3 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
3 Oct 36.1 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Oct after 36.2 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Oct after 35.1 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Oct after 36.7 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Oct after 36.9 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Oct after 36.7 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Oct after 37.9 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Oct after 38.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Oct after 37.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Oct after 37.8 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Oct after 37.4 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2018
After · 10 Oct 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 · 271Every 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 1 October 2018 and 3 October 2018: 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 7,261 hectares (72.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Carpentaria (4,715 ha, 0.1 %); Cook (2,002 ha, 0.0 %); Kowanyama (552 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.