Burned area
satellite only14,011ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 23 Aug 2024 – 5 Sept 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Central Highlands (Qld) fire, August 2024 Central Highlands (Qld), Blackall Tambo
Out · last detection 5 Sept 2024, 15:31 UTC
The fire started on 23 August 2024 in Central Highlands (Qld), Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,011 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 64th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 8 in Australia in 2024, of 39.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only14days
23 Aug 2024 to 5 Sept 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 5 Sept 2024, 15:31 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only23 Aug 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 23 Aug 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only889
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 152 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 23 Aug 2024 – 5 Sept 2024
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only1,864MW
Total radiative power on 24 August 2024; hotspots that day: 175.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 24 Aug 2024
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model18.9FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 9.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 23 Aug 2024, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model33.6°C · 17% RH
High of 33.6 °C and minimum humidity of 17% on 31 August 2024; gusts of 48 km/h on 5 September 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 23 Aug 2024 – 5 Sept 2024
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 14,011 ha
- Dates
- 23 Aug 2024 – 5 Sept 2024
- Name
- Central Highlands (Qld)
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/central-highlands-qld-2024-08?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire central-highlands-qld-2024-08.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-08-23 | 276 | 694 | 29.9 | 8.9 | 19 | 11.9 | 21.6 | 0 | 18.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2024-08-24 | 175 | 1,864 | 29 | 11.5 | 28 | 12.6 | 33.8 | 0 | 24.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-25 | 92 | 555 | 29.4 | 11.5 | 24 | 12.1 | 31.7 | 0 | 25.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-26 | 87 | 522 | 30.8 | 11.3 | 21 | 11.6 | 30.6 | 0 | 24.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-27 | 109 | 1,323 | 30.7 | 13 | 24 | 13.7 | 29.2 | 0 | 24.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-28 | 43 | 186 | 30.7 | 11.6 | 21 | 11.8 | 30.2 | 0 | 26.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-29 | 43 | 446 | 32.7 | 11.8 | 10 | 8 | 17.3 | 0 | 26.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-30 | 28 | 328 | 33.5 | 11.1 | 14 | 9.2 | 25.6 | 0 | 33.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-08-31 | 15 | 53 | 33.6 | 12.4 | 17 | 12.6 | 31.7 | 0 | 37.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-01 | 8 | 13 | 32.4 | 13 | 21 | 12.2 | 31.7 | 0 | 34.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-02 | 3 | 7 | 32.4 | 12.2 | 17 | 15.7 | 33.8 | 0 | 34.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-03 | 6 | 13 | 26.8 | 13 | 7 | 16.4 | 42.8 | 0 | 43.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-04 | 3 | 2 | 24.9 | 9 | 20 | 18.5 | 44.6 | 0 | 40.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-05 | 1 | 1 | 24.5 | 9.8 | 32 | 19.1 | 47.5 | 0 | 33.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-09-06 | 0 | 0 | 24.3 | 10.9 | 35 | 18.8 | 47.5 | 0 | 31.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-07 | 0 | 0 | 27.6 | 9.2 | 25 | 12 | 30.6 | 0 | 25 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-08 | 0 | 0 | 29.9 | 9.3 | 21 | 9.7 | 22.3 | 0 | 24.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-09 | 0 | 0 | 28.9 | 10.8 | 26 | 11.4 | 24.8 | 0 | 22.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-10 | 0 | 0 | 28.6 | 13.2 | 26 | 12.5 | 28.4 | 0 | 31.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-11 | 0 | 0 | 27.8 | 14.6 | 27 | 16.2 | 40 | 0 | 35.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-12 | 0 | 0 | 27.6 | 12.6 | 32 | 20.8 | 43.9 | 0 | 25.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-13 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 9.7 | 19 | 19.1 | 45 | 0 | 43.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-14 | 0 | 0 | 25.9 | 9.6 | 23 | 13.2 | 32.8 | 0 | 31.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-09-15 | 0 | 0 | 26.1 | 8.8 | 20 | 19.5 | 40.7 | 0 | 33.2 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 14,011ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 23 Aug 2024 – 5 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 23 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 889
- in a single hotspot: 152 MW
- Danger at start
- 19
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 429MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
23 Aug5 Sept
5 Sept 2024
How it evolved, day by day
24 Aug
29 Aug
1 Sept
4 Sept
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
48km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity
It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 373 ha in 2016, 2,767 ha in 2017, 1,030 ha in 2019, 1,619 ha in 2022, 447 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,488 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Central Highlands (Qld) where it started13,387 ha reached on 23 Aug0.2 %
-
753 ha reached on 26 Aug0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Built-up area0.50 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.50 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Aug | 29.9 °C | 19 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 24 Aug | 29.0 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 25 Aug | 29.4 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Aug | 30.8 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 27 Aug | 30.7 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Aug | 30.7 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 29 Aug | 32.7 °C | 10 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 30 Aug | 33.5 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 31 Aug | 33.6 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 1 Sept | 32.4 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Sept | 32.4 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Sept | 26.8 °C | 7 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Sept | 24.9 °C | 20 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Sept | 24.5 °C | 32 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Sept after | 24.3 °C | 35 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Sept after | 27.6 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 8 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 21 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Sept after | 28.9 °C | 26 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Sept after | 28.6 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Sept after | 27.8 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Sept after | 27.6 °C | 32 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Sept after | 24.0 °C | 19 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Sept after | 25.9 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Sept after | 26.1 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 18.9, a minimum humidity of 19% and 9 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 16.
FWI at the start
18.9
Minimum humidity
19 %
Days without rain
9
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Central Highlands (Qld) fire, August 2024
14,011 ha
14 days
FWI 18.9
Min. humidity 19 %
Murweh fire, March 2018
5,611 ha
18 days
FWI 16.7
Min. humidity 22 %
88 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Murweh fire, March 2018
6,167 ha
12 days
FWI 21.9
Min. humidity 22 %
86 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.7 mm on 1 Apr.
Banana fire, May 2023
20,042 ha
11 days
FWI 19.6
Min. humidity 22 %
217 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Murweh fire, October 2017
22,228 ha
16 days
FWI 13.7
Min. humidity 17 %
70 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.3 mm on 19 Nov.
Central Highlands (Qld) fire, November 2016
5,604 ha
7 days
FWI 22.2
Min. humidity 22 %
122 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 7 Dec.
What happened to them
- 13 days
- median duration
- 8,830 ha
- median area
- 44 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 4.3 mm
- rain at the end (median; 13 of 16 had it)
It was 1.6 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 14 days, against 13 days.
Only 6 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 3 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.3 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
48km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 5 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 16, with a median of 4.3 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 16 Aug 2024
After · 12 Sept 2024
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 24 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1031 µg/m³
Optical depth0.31
WHO 15
21 Aug25 Aug29 Aug2 Sept6 Sept
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
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 · 889Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,098 haBlackall TamboNovember 2024 · 9 days · 10 km away
- 14,822 haBlackall TamboNovember 2019 · 11 days · 12 km away
- 13,324 haCentral Highlands (Qld)24 December 2019 · 20 days · 23 km away
- 75,449 haCentral Highlands (Qld)6 September 2023 · 25 days · 26 km away
- 11,005 haBlackall TamboNovember 2025 · 12 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Central Highlands (Qld) fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 August 2024 and 5 September 2024: 14 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 14,011 hectares (140.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Central Highlands (Qld) (13,387 ha, 0.2 %); Blackall Tambo (753 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
- 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 16. Their median duration was 13 days and their median area 8,830 ha; 44 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 6 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 3 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.3 mm.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 889 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.