How long did the Gladstone fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 November 2019 and 25 December 2019: 31 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 8,404 hectares (84.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gladstone (7,576 ha, 0.7 %); Bundaberg (895 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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.

AU · Australia · 2019-11-25 → 2019-12-25

Gladstone fire, November 2019 Gladstone, Bundaberg

Out · last detection 25 Dec 2019, 03:51 UTC

The fire started on 25 November 2019 in Gladstone, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,404 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 952th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 450 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area: 8,404ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 31days; 25 Nov 2019 – 25 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 25 Nov; 2019
Heat detections: 625; in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start: 22; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Dec 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Nov25 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

252628293012345678910111213141516171819202122232425

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

51km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 2 Jan.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,183 ha in 2016, 51 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

Gladstone where it started

7,576 ha reached on 25 Nov

0.7 %
Bundaberg

895 ha reached on 14 Dec

0.1 %

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)
25 Nov	27.9 °C	38 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
26 Nov	28.9 °C	40 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
27 Nov	30.9 °C	41 %	41 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 12
28 Nov	29.9 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
29 Nov	29.5 °C	37 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
30 Nov	30.4 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
1 Dec	30.2 °C	37 %	48 km/h	0.4 mm	High 24
2 Dec	35.3 °C	17 %	47 km/h	1.8 mm	High 28
3 Dec	33.8 °C	17 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Dec	33.9 °C	13 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
5 Dec	35.0 °C	11 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
6 Dec	34.1 °C	26 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
7 Dec	33.9 °C	33 %	44 km/h	2.6 mm	Moderate 15
8 Dec	33.3 °C	27 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
9 Dec	30.6 °C	33 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
10 Dec	30.8 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
11 Dec	31.6 °C	40 %	39 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 21
12 Dec	32.1 °C	38 %	41 km/h	0.3 mm	High 23
13 Dec	33.7 °C	29 %	45 km/h	0.7 mm	High 28
14 Dec	32.1 °C	37 %	42 km/h	4.2 mm	Low 8
15 Dec	33.2 °C	29 %	50 km/h	0.3 mm	High 25
16 Dec	36.4 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Dec	30.5 °C	34 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Dec	28.5 °C	36 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
19 Dec	28.9 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Dec	30.8 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
21 Dec	31.4 °C	34 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
22 Dec	31.5 °C	37 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
23 Dec	30.9 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
24 Dec	31.6 °C	40 %	42 km/h	0.3 mm	High 27
25 Dec	30.5 °C	45 %	37 km/h	3.7 mm	Low 6
26 Dec after	27.3 °C	47 %	51 km/h	3.7 mm	Very low 5
27 Dec after	29.5 °C	32 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
28 Dec after	27.0 °C	44 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
29 Dec after	29.0 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
30 Dec after	30.3 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
31 Dec after	28.9 °C	48 %	44 km/h	1.6 mm	Low 9
1 Jan after	30.1 °C	42 %	39 km/h	1.5 mm	Low 11
2 Jan after	30.1 °C	47 %	38 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Nov 2019

After · 1 Jan 2020

Before After

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 · 625Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gladstone fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 November 2019 and 25 December 2019: 31 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 8,404 hectares (84.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gladstone (7,576 ha, 0.7 %); Bundaberg (895 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned