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Livingstone fire, 19 August 2017 Livingstone

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2017, 03:34 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2017 in Livingstone, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 44 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 111,933 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 31th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 9 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Livingstone · 2016Livingstone · 2021Livingstone · 2025Livingstone · 2019

Burnt area
111,933ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
44days
19 Aug 2017 – 1 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
19 Aug
2017
Heat detections
6,732
in a single hotspot: 443 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
1.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug1 Oct
1 Oct 2017

How it evolved, day by day

19 Aug 2017 · 674 MW · 79 20 Aug 2017 · 565 MW · 74 21 Aug 2017 · 69 MW · 24 22 Aug 2017 · 280 MW · 33 23 Aug 2017 · 20 MW · 6 24 Aug 2017 · 18 MW · 6 25 Aug 2017 · 305 MW · 53 26 Aug 2017 · 303 MW · 51 27 Aug 2017 · 44 MW · 22 28 Aug 2017 · 415 MW · 67 29 Aug 2017 · 416 MW · 49 30 Aug 2017 · 299 MW · 54 31 Aug 2017 · 111 MW · 34 1 Sept 2017 · 132 MW · 33 2 Sept 2017 · 220 MW · 68 3 Sept 2017 · 325 MW · 63 4 Sept 2017 · 588 MW · 90 5 Sept 2017 · 1,404 MW · 128 6 Sept 2017 · 701 MW · 76 7 Sept 2017 · 585 MW · 93 8 Sept 2017 · 1,129 MW · 179 9 Sept 2017 · 2,514 MW · 253 10 Sept 2017 · 305 MW · 75 11 Sept 2017 · 1,309 MW · 112 12 Sept 2017 · 1,378 MW · 164 13 Sept 2017 · 1,987 MW · 236 14 Sept 2017 · 14,317 MW · 1156 15 Sept 2017 · 5,588 MW · 326 16 Sept 2017 · 654 MW · 163 17 Sept 2017 · 1,432 MW · 232 18 Sept 2017 · 933 MW · 202 20 Sept 2017 · 1,138 MW · 160 21 Sept 2017 · 1,985 MW · 190 22 Sept 2017 · 1,535 MW · 207 23 Sept 2017 · 2,109 MW · 268 24 Sept 2017 · 3,607 MW · 321 25 Sept 2017 · 2,930 MW · 344 26 Sept 2017 · 2,626 MW · 283 27 Sept 2017 · 2,699 MW · 206 28 Sept 2017 · 1,625 MW · 221 29 Sept 2017 · 858 MW · 86 30 Sept 2017 · 2,382 MW · 208 1 Oct 2017 · 110 MW · 11
19 Aug 26 Aug 2 Sept 9 Sept 14 Sept 16 Sept 24 Sept 1 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
56km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.8 mm on 14 Oct.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,879 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 71% of the area of London (1,119 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Livingstone where it started
    112,370 ha reached on 19 Aug
    9.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area0.26 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.26 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 Aug 26.8 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Aug 24.7 °C 52 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Aug 26.6 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
18 Aug 29.6 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Aug 22.6 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Aug 18.9 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Aug 22.0 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Aug 24.4 °C 47 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
23 Aug 24.2 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
24 Aug 24.4 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Aug 24.9 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
26 Aug 20.8 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
27 Aug 20.5 °C 63 % 28 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 4
28 Aug 25.0 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 11
29 Aug 24.4 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
30 Aug 25.6 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
31 Aug 25.9 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Sept 24.7 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Sept 25.1 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Sept 23.5 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Sept 26.9 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Sept 29.4 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Sept 27.0 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 27.1 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Sept 27.2 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept 26.2 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Sept 23.7 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Sept 26.4 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Sept 25.4 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Sept 25.4 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Sept 29.3 °C 21 % 56 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 42
15 Sept 26.0 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept 24.9 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Sept 26.3 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept 24.7 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Sept 27.3 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Sept 29.4 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Sept 26.8 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Sept 27.3 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Sept 26.6 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Sept 26.6 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Sept 26.9 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Sept 28.9 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Sept 27.3 °C 46 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Sept 28.4 °C 51 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Sept 31.4 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Sept 30.3 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Oct 26.5 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 19
2 Oct after 23.1 °C 69 % 41 km/h 7.6 mm Very low 1
3 Oct after 26.7 °C 60 % 38 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 4
4 Oct after 27.7 °C 56 % 24 km/h 2.6 mm Very low 4
5 Oct after 28.0 °C 55 % 28 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 4
6 Oct after 28.3 °C 53 % 31 km/h 0.9 mm Low 7
7 Oct after 28.6 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
8 Oct after 28.6 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
9 Oct after 29.2 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
10 Oct after 30.4 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Oct after 29.2 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Oct after 29.6 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
13 Oct after 27.9 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 19
14 Oct after 21.9 °C 77 % 25 km/h 8.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2017
After · 8 Oct 2017

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 · 6,732Every 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 Livingstone fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 August 2017 and 1 October 2017: 44 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 111,933 hectares (1,119.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Livingstone (112,370 ha, 9.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 56 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 6,732 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.