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Gladstone fire, August 2017 Gladstone

Out · last detection 6 Sept 2017, 03:01 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2017 in Gladstone, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,049 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1718th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 851 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
5,049ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
28 Aug 2017 – 6 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
28 Aug
2017
Heat detections
290
in a single hotspot: 76 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug6 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112346

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
38km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 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. Gladstone where it started
    5,094 ha reached on 28 Aug
    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 Aug 26.3 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug 25.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Aug 26.3 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Aug 25.9 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Sept 25.0 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Sept 26.0 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Sept 26.2 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept 28.5 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Sept 28.2 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Sept 28.0 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Sept after 28.0 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Sept after 27.2 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Sept after 26.9 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept after 25.1 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Sept after 26.3 °C 41 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Sept after 27.4 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Sept after 27.4 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Sept after 25.7 °C 22 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Sept after 25.2 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Sept after 26.3 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2017
After · 13 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 · 290Every 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 August 2017 and 6 September 2017: 10 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 5,049 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gladstone (5,094 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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

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.