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Gladstone fire, 28 November 2016 Gladstone, Bundaberg

Out · last detection 8 Dec 2016, 15:56 UTC

The fire started on 28 November 2016 in Gladstone, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,958 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1011th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 210 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
7,958ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
28 Nov 2016 – 8 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
28 Nov
2016
Heat detections
319
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
3
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Nov8 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

28293012345678

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
49km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 19 Dec.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Gladstone where it started
    4,877 ha reached on 28 Nov
    0.5 %
  2. Bundaberg
    3,135 ha reached on 30 Nov
    0.5 %

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)
28 Nov 29.1 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 3
29 Nov 30.9 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
30 Nov 32.2 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
1 Dec 33.6 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
2 Dec 36.0 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Dec 35.1 °C 39 % 37 km/h 1.4 mm Low 9
4 Dec 33.2 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
5 Dec 33.7 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
6 Dec 33.6 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
7 Dec 33.9 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 12
8 Dec 32.9 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
9 Dec after 33.5 °C 45 % 31 km/h 10.1 mm Very low 1
10 Dec after 27.1 °C 58 % 45 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 1
11 Dec after 23.5 °C 62 % 35 km/h 4.2 mm Very low 0
12 Dec after 27.5 °C 46 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
13 Dec after 28.3 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Low 6
14 Dec after 31.1 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
15 Dec after 33.2 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
16 Dec after 31.2 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
17 Dec after 31.6 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
18 Dec after 34.0 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 13
19 Dec after 27.1 °C 63 % 40 km/h 1.0 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Nov 2016
After · 15 Dec 2016

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 · 319Every 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 Gladstone fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 November 2016 and 8 December 2016: 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 7,958 hectares (79.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gladstone (4,877 ha, 0.5 %); Bundaberg (3,135 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
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
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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.