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Flinders (Qld) fire, October 2018 Flinders (Qld)

Out · last detection 30 Oct 2018, 14:58 UTC

The fire started on 19 October 2018 in Flinders (Qld), Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,070 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1380th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 733 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
6,070ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
19 Oct 2018 – 30 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
19 Oct
2018
Heat detections
350
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Oct30 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

19212224252627282930

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
52km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 9 Nov.

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
    6,070 ha reached on 19 Oct
    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)
19 Oct 33.1 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Oct 34.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Oct 35.6 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Oct 35.5 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Oct 33.1 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Oct 34.2 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Oct 34.3 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Oct 36.3 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Oct 38.1 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Oct 36.6 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
29 Oct 38.4 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 Oct 35.7 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Oct after 35.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Nov after 33.4 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Nov after 33.1 °C 26 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Nov after 33.1 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Nov after 34.8 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Nov after 36.9 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Nov after 38.0 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Nov after 37.7 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Nov after 34.6 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Nov after 31.7 °C 35 % 48 km/h 1.1 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Oct 2018
After · 6 Nov 2018

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 · 350Every 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 19 October 2018 and 30 October 2018: 12 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 6,070 hectares (60.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Flinders (Qld) (6,070 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.