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NZ · New Zealand ·

Far North District fire, 27 June 2019 Far North District

Out · last detection 27 Jun 2019, 13:21 UTC

The fire started on 27 June 2019 in Far North District, New Zealand, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 318 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 20th largest in Northland Region since 2016 (of 23 with a page). Number 37 in New Zealand in 2019, of 42.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
318ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
27 Jun 2019 – 27 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Jun
2019
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
27MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jun27 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

27 Jun 2019 · 27 MW · 6

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

12°high
30km/h · peak gust
71%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 46.2 mm on 4 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Far North District where it started
    321 ha reached on 27 Jun
    0.0 %

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 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)
27 Jun 12.3 °C 71 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
28 Jun after 12.3 °C 71 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
29 Jun after 12.2 °C 69 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
30 Jun after 13.0 °C 67 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
1 Jul after 14.8 °C 71 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
2 Jul after 14.7 °C 76 % 59 km/h 0.6 mm Very low 2
3 Jul after 16.9 °C 78 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 2
4 Jul after 14.8 °C 90 % 59 km/h 46.2 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 0.2, a minimum humidity of 71% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 18.

FWI at the start 0.2
Minimum humidity 71 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Whangarei District fire, April 2017
335 ha 4 days FWI 0.4 Min. humidity 71 % 25 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 24 Apr.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
338 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 18 of 18 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (318 ha against a median of 338 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 3 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 3.2 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

46.2 mmfirst rain
4 Jul7 days after it ended
30km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 Jun, and on 4 Jul 46.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 18, with a median of 3.2 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 2017.
  • 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 · 20 Jun 2019
After · 4 Jul 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 · 6Every 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 New Zealand

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Far North District fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 June 2019 and 27 June 2019: 1 day 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 318 hectares (3.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Far North District (321 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 12.3 °C, humidity dropped to 71 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 0, class Very low.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of New Zealand (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 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 338 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 3.2 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: 111 · 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.

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 111.

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. 6 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.