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Carpentaria fire, 10 August 2019 Carpentaria

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2019, 03:48 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2019 in Carpentaria, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 39,571 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 134th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 72 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
39,571ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
10 Aug 2019 – 30 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
10 Aug
2019
Heat detections
1,371
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
11.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug30 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
46km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,198 ha in 2016, 755 ha in 2017, 356 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Carpentaria where it started
    39,686 ha reached on 10 Aug
    0.6 %

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)
10 Aug 31.9 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Aug 28.2 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Aug 29.4 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Aug 30.2 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Aug 31.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Aug 32.2 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Aug 33.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug 33.9 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Aug 34.0 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug 33.3 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Aug 32.4 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
21 Aug 31.0 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Aug 30.7 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Aug 31.9 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Aug 31.0 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Aug 31.8 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Aug 32.3 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Aug 32.1 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Aug 32.3 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
29 Aug 31.9 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
30 Aug 32.3 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Aug after 32.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Sept after 33.2 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Sept after 33.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Sept after 34.1 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Sept after 33.6 °C 6 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Sept after 32.8 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Sept after 32.9 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Sept after 34.5 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Sept after 34.9 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
9 Sept after 32.4 °C 4 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2019
After · 6 Sept 2019

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 · 1,371Every 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 10 August 2019 and 30 August 2019: 21 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 39,571 hectares (395.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Carpentaria (39,686 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.