How long did the Isaac fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2024 and 29 September 2024: 13 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 6,588 hectares (65.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Isaac (6,653 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.

AU · Australia · 2024-09-17 → 2024-09-29

Isaac fire, September 2024 Isaac

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2024, 16:01 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2024 in Isaac, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,588 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1243th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 444 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 6,588ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 17 Sept 2024 – 29 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 17 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 303; in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 30 Sept 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept29 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

171819202122232425282930

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

52km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 9 Oct.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 19 ha in 2016, 206 ha in 2017, 562 ha in 2020, 3,363 ha in 2021, 118 ha in 2022, 2,620 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,942 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Isaac where it started

6,653 ha reached on 17 Sept

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)
17 Sept	23.0 °C	22 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
18 Sept	26.8 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
19 Sept	27.5 °C	29 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
20 Sept	30.1 °C	17 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 Sept	29.7 °C	7 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
22 Sept	28.0 °C	12 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
23 Sept	28.8 °C	12 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
24 Sept	28.7 °C	18 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
25 Sept	29.6 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
26 Sept	30.3 °C	36 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
27 Sept	28.6 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
28 Sept	28.9 °C	14 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Sept	30.9 °C	15 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
30 Sept after	32.8 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Oct after	31.1 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
2 Oct after	28.4 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 43
3 Oct after	27.8 °C	27 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
4 Oct after	28.4 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
5 Oct after	31.9 °C	23 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
6 Oct after	33.7 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Oct after	34.5 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Oct after	34.3 °C	19 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
9 Oct after	33.0 °C	29 %	36 km/h	1.5 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Sept 2024

After · 6 Oct 2024

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 23 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1031 µg/m³

Optical depth0.35

WHO 15

1516171819202122232425262728293012

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 · 303Every 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 Isaac fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2024 and 29 September 2024: 13 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 6,588 hectares (65.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Isaac (6,653 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned