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AU · Australia · –

Clarence Valley fire, 22 October 2019 Clarence Valley, Tenterfield, Glen Innes Severn

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2019, 14:53 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2019 in Clarence Valley, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 70 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 175,358 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 8th largest in New South Wales since 2016 (of 122 with a page). Number 10 in Australia in 2019, of 288.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Western Downs · 2023Clarence Valley · 2023Clarence Valley · 2018Tenterfield · 2017

Burnt area
175,358ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
70days
22 Oct 2019 – 30 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
22 Oct
2019
Heat detections
15,894
in a single hotspot: 542 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
2.6GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct30 Dec
31 Dec 2019

How it evolved, day by day

22 Oct 2019 · 5 MW · 7 23 Oct 2019 · 14 MW · 9 24 Oct 2019 · 23 MW · 5 25 Oct 2019 · 12 MW · 7 27 Oct 2019 · 26 MW · 3 28 Oct 2019 · 24 MW · 18 29 Oct 2019 · 60 MW · 6 30 Oct 2019 · 14 MW · 12 1 Nov 2019 · 14 MW · 8 2 Nov 2019 · 5 MW · 7 3 Nov 2019 · 226 MW · 24 4 Nov 2019 · 1,467 MW · 91 5 Nov 2019 · 818 MW · 94 6 Nov 2019 · 829 MW · 135 7 Nov 2019 · 2,581 MW · 278 8 Nov 2019 · 14,460 MW · 1008 9 Nov 2019 · 8,516 MW · 638 10 Nov 2019 · 5,651 MW · 718 11 Nov 2019 · 1,182 MW · 216 12 Nov 2019 · 8,966 MW · 972 13 Nov 2019 · 1,736 MW · 348 14 Nov 2019 · 738 MW · 98 15 Nov 2019 · 2,038 MW · 268 16 Nov 2019 · 4,275 MW · 258 17 Nov 2019 · 2,152 MW · 127 18 Nov 2019 · 405 MW · 150 19 Nov 2019 · 835 MW · 136 20 Nov 2019 · 281 MW · 28 21 Nov 2019 · 346 MW · 88 22 Nov 2019 · 265 MW · 54 23 Nov 2019 · 31 MW · 4 24 Nov 2019 · 31 MW · 6 25 Nov 2019 · 761 MW · 192 26 Nov 2019 · 8,525 MW · 665 27 Nov 2019 · 2,088 MW · 184 28 Nov 2019 · 1,479 MW · 109 29 Nov 2019 · 1,088 MW · 225 30 Nov 2019 · 121 MW · 11 2 Dec 2019 · 6,059 MW · 606 3 Dec 2019 · 2,546 MW · 369 4 Dec 2019 · 4,843 MW · 707 5 Dec 2019 · 4,560 MW · 511 6 Dec 2019 · 3,858 MW · 454 7 Dec 2019 · 6,557 MW · 743 8 Dec 2019 · 1,854 MW · 107 9 Dec 2019 · 1,869 MW · 146 10 Dec 2019 · 7,562 MW · 409 11 Dec 2019 · 1,047 MW · 86 12 Dec 2019 · 60 MW · 12 14 Dec 2019 · 177 MW · 81 15 Dec 2019 · 6,485 MW · 496 16 Dec 2019 · 19,177 MW · 615 17 Dec 2019 · 8,990 MW · 394 18 Dec 2019 · 5,129 MW · 820 19 Dec 2019 · 5,463 MW · 680 20 Dec 2019 · 3,679 MW · 453 21 Dec 2019 · 2,405 MW · 323 22 Dec 2019 · 1,187 MW · 103 23 Dec 2019 · 408 MW · 40 26 Dec 2019 · 1 MW · 1 27 Dec 2019 · 63 MW · 33 28 Dec 2019 · 570 MW · 116 29 Dec 2019 · 1,574 MW · 200 30 Dec 2019 · 873 MW · 122 31 Dec 2019 · 290 MW · 60
22 Oct 6 Nov 19 Nov 3 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

38°high
73km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 6 Jan.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 14,291 ha in 2016, 19,163 ha in 2017, 14,098 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 44,228 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

20 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.1 times the area of London (1,754 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Clarence Valley where it started
    87,657 ha reached on 22 Oct
    8.4 %
  2. Tenterfield
    44,037 ha reached on 8 Nov
    6.0 %
  3. Glen Innes Severn
    44,036 ha reached on 3 Nov
    8.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area14 ha
Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 14 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (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)
22 Oct 25.5 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Oct 28.4 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Oct 30.3 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Oct 31.5 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Oct 32.9 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Oct 30.9 °C 20 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Oct 27.4 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
29 Oct 27.3 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Oct 27.1 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
31 Oct 28.4 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
1 Nov 25.1 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Nov 26.1 °C 45 % 37 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 15
3 Nov 28.7 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Nov 32.3 °C 17 % 43 km/h 1.0 mm High 36
5 Nov 25.9 °C 12 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Nov 30.5 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Nov 35.5 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Nov 34.8 °C 11 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
9 Nov 25.8 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
10 Nov 29.1 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Nov 30.4 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Nov 34.9 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Nov 28.6 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 40
14 Nov 31.4 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Nov 33.3 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Nov 35.5 °C 13 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Nov 32.6 °C 21 % 62 km/h 1.2 mm Extreme 60
18 Nov 27.6 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Nov 35.3 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Nov 35.4 °C 21 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Nov 32.0 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.9 mm High 30
22 Nov 34.8 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Nov 33.8 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Nov 31.8 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
25 Nov 31.9 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Nov 34.7 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Nov 31.0 °C 30 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Nov 35.0 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
29 Nov 33.4 °C 39 % 37 km/h 4.6 mm Moderate 20
30 Nov 33.6 °C 33 % 40 km/h 2.7 mm High 22
1 Dec 29.7 °C 44 % 60 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
2 Dec 29.2 °C 21 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Dec 31.5 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Dec 34.3 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Dec 35.4 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Dec 37.3 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Dec 37.2 °C 10 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Dec 31.4 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Dec 30.8 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Dec 38.5 °C 21 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm Very high 38
11 Dec 33.6 °C 38 % 40 km/h 10.9 mm High 25
12 Dec 31.0 °C 50 % 46 km/h 7.2 mm Low 6
13 Dec 23.8 °C 69 % 29 km/h 7.6 mm Very low 0
14 Dec 33.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 3
15 Dec 34.2 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
16 Dec 37.9 °C 17 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Dec 28.5 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Dec 29.1 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Dec 35.2 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Dec 33.4 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Dec 37.3 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Dec 31.3 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Dec 33.2 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
24 Dec 30.1 °C 59 % 37 km/h 48.6 mm Very low 0
25 Dec 26.0 °C 65 % 39 km/h 17.7 mm Very low 0
26 Dec 26.9 °C 47 % 34 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 1
27 Dec 27.2 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 4
28 Dec 28.9 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm Low 8
29 Dec 31.7 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
30 Dec 32.1 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
31 Dec after 32.7 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
1 Jan after 33.8 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
2 Jan after 35.2 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Jan after 34.2 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Jan after 37.8 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Jan after 37.5 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
6 Jan after 33.7 °C 30 % 36 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 20.5, a minimum humidity of 32% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.

FWI at the start 20.5
Minimum humidity 32 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Western Downs fire, July 2023
5,945 ha 9 days FWI 17.7 Min. humidity 33 % 246 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
6,739 ha
median area
26 %
went past 10,000 ha
4.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 12 of 19 had it)

It was 26.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 70 days, against 6 days.

None of its 19 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 7 of 19, 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 4.4 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

1.0 mmfirst rain
6 Jan7 days after it ended
73km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 30 Dec, and on 6 Jan 1.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 12 of 19, with a median of 4.4 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Oct 2019
After · 6 Jan 2020

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 · 15,894Every 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 Clarence Valley fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 October 2019 to 30 December 2019 (70 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 October 2019 to 23 December 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 175,358 hectares (1,753.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Clarence Valley (87,657 ha, 8.4 %); Tenterfield (44,037 ha, 6.0 %); Glen Innes Severn (44,036 ha, 8.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 73 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very 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.
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: 19. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 6,739 ha; 26 % went past 10,000 ha. None of its 19 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 7 of 19, 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 4.4 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 23 December 2019 → 30 December 2019.
  2. Start date: 27 October 2019 → 22 October 2019.

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
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.

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 27 October 2019 to 23 December 2019. 15,894 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.