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Cessnock fire, November 2019 Cessnock

Out · last detection 20 Dec 2019, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 27 November 2019 in Cessnock, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,819 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 76th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 490 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
7,819ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
27 Nov 2019 – 19 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
27 Nov
2019
Heat detections
912
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Nov19 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

27282930123456789101114151617181920

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
84km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 24 Dec.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 256 ha in 2017, 593 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Cessnock where it started
    7,845 ha reached on 27 Nov
    4.0 %

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)
27 Nov 23.0 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
28 Nov 27.3 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
29 Nov 30.6 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
30 Nov 29.2 °C 25 % 58 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 21
1 Dec 25.1 °C 22 % 37 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 4
2 Dec 19.8 °C 29 % 84 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 12
3 Dec 26.6 °C 18 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Dec 29.3 °C 11 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Dec 31.8 °C 10 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Dec 30.5 °C 15 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Dec 27.8 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Dec 24.0 °C 48 % 50 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
9 Dec 28.9 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Dec 36.9 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Dec 23.3 °C 51 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
12 Dec 21.8 °C 52 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
13 Dec 21.6 °C 51 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 13
14 Dec 29.0 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Dec 30.0 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Dec 22.7 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Dec 24.0 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Dec 28.0 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Dec 39.4 °C 9 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Dec after 26.4 °C 44 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Dec after 39.5 °C 19 % 69 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Dec after 20.0 °C 55 % 51 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
23 Dec after 19.6 °C 67 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
24 Dec after 25.8 °C 58 % 49 km/h 2.4 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Nov 2019
After · 26 Dec 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 · 912Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cessnock fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 November 2019 and 19 December 2019: 23 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 7,819 hectares (78.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cessnock (7,845 ha, 4.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 84 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.

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
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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.