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Gladstone fire, 14 October 2023 Gladstone, Banana

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2023, 15:06 UTC

The fire started on 14 October 2023 in Gladstone, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 30,143 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 181th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 172 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
30,143ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
14 Oct 2023 – 1 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
14 Oct
2023
Heat detections
3,089
in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
18.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Nov 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Oct1 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

14151617181920212223242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
49km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 905 ha in 2016, 434 ha in 2017, 205 ha in 2019, 146 ha in 2021, 262 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,695 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Gladstone where it started
    15,500 ha reached on 14 Oct
    1.5 %
  2. Banana
    14,737 ha reached on 15 Oct
    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)
7 Oct 26.0 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Oct 23.4 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
9 Oct 23.9 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Oct 23.6 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
11 Oct 26.6 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Oct 27.4 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Oct 29.3 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Oct 30.6 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Oct 30.2 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Oct 29.5 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Oct 32.7 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Oct 28.3 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Oct 27.6 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Oct 29.1 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Oct 29.8 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Oct 31.3 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Oct 31.1 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Oct 30.2 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
25 Oct 30.0 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Oct 31.3 °C 29 % 34 km/h 1.0 mm High 29
27 Oct 26.5 °C 7 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Oct 27.1 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Oct 27.2 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Oct 29.1 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Oct 30.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Nov 33.4 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
2 Nov after 24.1 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
3 Nov after 26.2 °C 40 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Nov after 25.4 °C 47 % 43 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Oct 2023
After · 8 Nov 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 20 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1049 µg/m³
Optical depth0.75
12131415161718192021222324252627282930311234
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 3,089Every 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 14 October 2023 and 1 November 2023: 19 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 30,143 hectares (301.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gladstone (15,500 ha, 1.5 %); Banana (14,737 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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
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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.