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Isaac fire, December 2019 Isaac

Out · last detection 22 Dec 2019, 14:20 UTC

The fire started on 15 December 2019 in Isaac, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,672 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 900th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 438 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
8,672ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
15 Dec 2019 – 22 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Dec
2019
Heat detections
431
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Dec22 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819202122

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
52km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 26 Dec.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 373 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Isaac where it started
    8,696 ha reached on 15 Dec
    0.2 %

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)
15 Dec 35.0 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Dec 37.6 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Dec 34.3 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Dec 31.3 °C 36 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Dec 30.6 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Dec 32.5 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Dec 32.9 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Dec 34.5 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Dec after 32.3 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Dec after 37.0 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Dec after 39.4 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 46
26 Dec after 31.2 °C 50 % 46 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Dec 2019
After · 29 Dec 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 · 431Every 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 15 December 2019 and 22 December 2019: 8 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 8,672 hectares (86.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Isaac (8,696 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.