Burned area
satellite only13,277ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 5 Dec 2021 – 17 Dec 2021
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Charters Towers fire, 5 December 2021 Charters Towers
Out · last detection 17 Dec 2021, 15:49 UTC
The fire started on 5 December 2021 in Charters Towers, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,277 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
This entry is probably a savanna fire in Australia’s tropical north, not a bushfire like those in the south of the country. Millions of hectares of northern savanna and grassland burn every year: much of it in burns lit on purpose early in the dry season (traditional fire management, parks and cattle stations), the rest in grass fires that return to the same ground every few years. This is our assumption, based on the location; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
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Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches 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 only13days
5 Dec 2021 to 17 Dec 2021: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 17 Dec 2021, 15:49 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 only5 Dec 2021
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 5 Dec 2021
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only566
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 136 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 5 Dec 2021 – 17 Dec 2021
+− 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 only2,309MW
Total radiative power on 6 December 2021; hotspots that day: 182.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 6 Dec 2021
+− 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
model9.4FWI · low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 4.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 5 Dec 2021, 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
model33.0°C · 30% RH
High of 33.0 °C and minimum humidity of 30% on 10 December 2021; gusts of 45 km/h on 5 December 2021.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 5 Dec 2021 – 17 Dec 2021
- 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
-
logLast day with fire: 10 December 2021 → 17 December 2021.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 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
- 13,277 ha
- Dates
- 5 Dec 2021 – 17 Dec 2021
- Name
- Charters Towers
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/charters-towers-2021-12-2?v=2026-10-26A 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 charters-towers-2021-12-2.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-12-05 | 59 | 120 | 30.1 | 18.9 | 43 | 15.9 | 44.6 | 0.2 | 9.4 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-06 | 182 | 2,309 | 28.7 | 18.9 | 48 | 13.3 | 37.4 | 0 | 9.3 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-07 | 99 | 1,212 | 28.5 | 19.7 | 54 | 13.8 | 42.8 | 0.9 | 6.1 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-08 | 115 | 918 | 30 | 19.3 | 50 | 12 | 31.7 | 0.4 | 8 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-09 | 1 | 10 | 30.3 | 20.2 | 49 | 7.4 | 27.7 | 5.3 | 0.8 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-10 | 5 | 17 | 33 | 19.4 | 30 | 10.5 | 25.2 | 0 | 8.9 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-11 | 0 | 0 | 31.3 | 18.7 | 46 | 12.2 | 31.7 | 1.5 | 5.8 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-12 | 0 | 0 | 29.8 | 19.8 | 54 | 15.3 | 34.6 | 1.2 | 5.8 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-13 | 1 | 1 | 27.6 | 20.9 | 60 | 13.1 | 37.4 | 0.5 | 6.9 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-14 | 0 | 0 | 29.3 | 19.5 | 47 | 13.2 | 34.6 | 0 | 10 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-12-15 | 2 | 14 | 29.5 | 19.1 | 44 | 15 | 36.7 | 0 | 12.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-12-16 | 62 | 1,072 | 29.8 | 19.9 | 45 | 15.1 | 37.4 | 0 | 12.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-12-17 | 40 | 196 | 29.8 | 18.8 | 42 | 14.7 | 37.4 | 0 | 13.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2021-12-18 | 0 | 0 | 28.6 | 18.8 | 44 | 18 | 43.6 | 0 | 15.8 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-12-19 | 0 | 0 | 29.3 | 18.8 | 48 | 14.7 | 35.6 | 0.2 | 14.8 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-12-20 | 0 | 0 | 29.6 | 19.5 | 45 | 15 | 37.1 | 0 | 15.5 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-12-21 | 0 | 0 | 29.4 | 19.3 | 47 | 14.1 | 35.3 | 0.3 | 15.5 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-12-22 | 0 | 0 | 32.1 | 19.4 | 38 | 14 | 36.4 | 0.2 | 17.5 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-12-23 | 0 | 0 | 32.1 | 19.3 | 39 | 14 | 34.9 | 0.2 | 18.1 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-12-24 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 19.3 | 36 | 11.2 | 31 | 0.2 | 18.2 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-12-25 | 0 | 0 | 30.4 | 21.4 | 53 | 13.5 | 34.9 | 1.4 | 9.1 | bajo | 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
- 13,277ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 5 Dec 2021 – 17 Dec 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 5 Dec
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 566
- in a single hotspot: 136 MW
- Danger at start
- 9
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 587MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
5 Dec17 Dec
17 Dec 2021
How it evolved, day by day
6 Dec
9 Dec
13 Dec
16 Dec
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
33°high
45km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 25 Dec.
This area had burned before
73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,857 ha in 2016, 4 ha in 2017, 19 ha in 2018, 918 ha in 2019, 15 ha in 2020.
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
-
Charters Towers where it started13,226 ha reached on 5 Dec0.2 %
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 2020Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Dec | 30.1 °C | 43 % | 45 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 9 |
| 6 Dec | 28.7 °C | 48 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 7 Dec | 28.5 °C | 54 % | 43 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 6 |
| 8 Dec | 30.0 °C | 50 % | 32 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 8 |
| 9 Dec | 30.3 °C | 49 % | 28 km/h | 5.3 mm | Very low 1 |
| 10 Dec | 33.0 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 11 Dec | 31.3 °C | 46 % | 32 km/h | 1.5 mm | Low 6 |
| 12 Dec | 29.8 °C | 54 % | 35 km/h | 1.2 mm | Low 6 |
| 13 Dec | 27.6 °C | 60 % | 37 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 7 |
| 14 Dec | 29.3 °C | 47 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 15 Dec | 29.5 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 16 Dec | 29.8 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 17 Dec | 29.8 °C | 42 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 18 Dec after | 28.6 °C | 44 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 19 Dec after | 29.3 °C | 48 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 20 Dec after | 29.6 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 21 Dec after | 29.4 °C | 47 % | 35 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 22 Dec after | 32.1 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 23 Dec after | 32.1 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 24 Dec after | 33.0 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 25 Dec after | 30.4 °C | 53 % | 35 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 9 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 28 Nov 2021
After · 24 Dec 2021
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.
Detections table · 566Every 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
- 17,060 haCharters TowersJanuary 2016 · 12 days · 6 km away
- 17,673 haCharters Towers16 September 2026 · 7 days · 7 km away
- 11,968 haCharters Towers19 November 2025 · 9 days · 21 km away
- 16,959 haCharters Towers20 October 2018 · 25 days · 31 km away
- 16,684 haCharters Towers8 September 2017 · 10 days · 34 km away
- 20,949 haCharters Towers5 December 2023 · 7 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Charters Towers fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 December 2021 to 17 December 2021 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 December 2021 to 10 December 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,277 hectares (132.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Charters Towers (13,226 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.
- 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 10 December 2021 → 17 December 2021.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 December 2021 to 10 December 2021. 566 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.