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Flinders (Qld) fire, September 2017 Flinders (Qld)

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2017, 15:49 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2017 in Flinders (Qld), Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,247 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 965th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 452 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
8,247ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
14 Sept 2017 – 17 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Sept
2017
Heat detections
448
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

14151617

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
50km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Flinders (Qld) where it started
    8,248 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 26.7 °C 8 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
15 Sept 26.6 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Sept 27.2 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Sept 26.7 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Sept after 27.2 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Sept after 27.1 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 38
20 Sept after 29.8 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Sept after 31.0 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Sept after 32.0 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Sept after 32.0 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Sept after 31.3 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Sept after 32.0 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Sept after 33.4 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Sept after 33.9 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2017
After · 24 Sept 2017

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 · 448Every 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 Flinders (Qld) fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2017 and 17 September 2017: 4 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 8,247 hectares (82.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Flinders (Qld) (8,248 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, class 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.

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
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.

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.