Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Isaac fire, September 2019 Isaac, Livingstone

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2019, 15:18 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2019 in Isaac, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,774 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 1034th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 496 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
7,774ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
5 Sept 2019 – 14 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
5 Sept
2019
Heat detections
480
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept14 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
49km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 511 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Isaac where it started
    7,548 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.1 %
  2. Livingstone
    282 ha reached on 9 Sept
    0.0 %

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)
5 Sept 30.4 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 29.5 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Sept 26.7 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Sept 26.0 °C 5 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Sept 24.3 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Sept 21.3 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Sept 23.3 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept 22.3 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Sept 25.5 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Sept 26.1 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Sept after 24.7 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Sept after 23.5 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Sept after 26.2 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Sept after 27.3 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Sept after 24.3 °C 47 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Sept after 24.0 °C 40 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Sept after 23.9 °C 44 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
22 Sept after 24.3 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Sept after 25.7 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Sept after 26.6 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2019
After · 21 Sept 2019

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 · 480Every 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 Isaac fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 September 2019 and 14 September 2019: 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 7,774 hectares (77.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Isaac (7,548 ha, 0.1 %); Livingstone (282 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.