How long did the Douglas fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2021 and 24 September 2021: 11 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 8,201 hectares (82.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (7,716 ha, 0.1 %); Douglas (611 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

AU · Australia · 2021-09-14 → 2021-09-24

Douglas fire, September 2021 Cook, Douglas

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2021, 04:14 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2021 in Douglas, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,201 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 977th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 229 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area: 8,201ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 14 Sept 2021 – 24 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 14 Sept; 2021
Heat detections: 307; in a single hotspot: 235 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 326MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 24 Sept 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

14 Sept 16 Sept 18 Sept 20 Sept 22 Sept 24 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

32°high

67km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,496 ha in 2017, 1,296 ha in 2018, 267 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,642 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cook

7,716 ha reached on 15 Sept

0.1 %
Douglas where it started

611 ha reached on 14 Sept

0.2 %

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)
14 Sept	31.3 °C	41 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
15 Sept	29.1 °C	45 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
16 Sept	28.1 °C	40 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Sept	26.7 °C	45 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
18 Sept	26.9 °C	43 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Sept	27.4 °C	49 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Sept	28.1 °C	46 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Sept	31.7 °C	28 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Sept	25.7 °C	28 %	66 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Sept	26.2 °C	43 %	67 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Sept	25.9 °C	56 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
25 Sept after	29.3 °C	48 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
26 Sept after	30.8 °C	42 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
27 Sept after	31.2 °C	39 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
28 Sept after	30.1 °C	48 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 Sept after	30.4 °C	47 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
30 Sept after	30.3 °C	49 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
1 Oct after	32.2 °C	43 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
2 Oct after	33.5 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
3 Oct after	36.2 °C	29 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Oct after	36.2 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Oct after	35.0 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Oct after	32.7 °C	35 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
7 Oct after	32.1 °C	39 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
8 Oct after	31.9 °C	37 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Oct after	30.9 °C	43 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
10 Oct after	31.2 °C	40 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Oct after	32.2 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Sept 2021

After · 1 Oct 2021

Before After

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 · 307Every 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

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Douglas fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2021 and 24 September 2021: 11 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 8,201 hectares (82.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cook (7,716 ha, 0.1 %); Douglas (611 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned