How long did the Lockhart River fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 October 2019 and 29 November 2019: 30 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 10,224 hectares (102.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Lockhart River (10,119 ha, 2.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 62 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.

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 · 2019-10-31 → 2019-11-29

Lockhart River fire, 31 October 2019 Lockhart River

Out · last detection 29 Nov 2019, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 31 October 2019 in Lockhart River, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,224 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 745th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1745 with a page). Number 369 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lockhart River · 2019 Cook · 2016

Burnt area: 10,224ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 30days; 31 Oct 2019 – 29 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 31 Oct; 2019
Heat detections: 737; in a single hotspot: 145 MW
Danger at start: 3; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 296MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Oct29 Nov

Play back 29 Nov 2019

How it evolved, day by day

31 Oct 5 Nov 11 Nov 16 Nov 21 Nov 23 Nov 26 Nov

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

48km/h · peak gust

62%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 9 Dec.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 484 ha in 2016, 839 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 6.5% of the area of London (102 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

Lockhart River where it started

10,119 ha reached on 31 Oct

2.8 %

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 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
31 Oct	26.6 °C	72 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	Very low 3
1 Nov	26.7 °C	75 %	42 km/h	0.5 mm	Very low 5
2 Nov	26.9 °C	72 %	48 km/h	0.7 mm	Low 5
3 Nov	26.9 °C	73 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
4 Nov	27.1 °C	70 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
5 Nov	26.6 °C	72 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
6 Nov	27.0 °C	66 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
7 Nov	27.5 °C	65 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
8 Nov	27.3 °C	70 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
9 Nov	27.5 °C	75 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
10 Nov	28.5 °C	77 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
11 Nov	27.3 °C	70 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
12 Nov	26.6 °C	64 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
13 Nov	27.7 °C	62 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
14 Nov	27.3 °C	70 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
15 Nov	27.5 °C	66 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
16 Nov	27.4 °C	69 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
17 Nov	27.7 °C	69 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
18 Nov	27.9 °C	67 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
19 Nov	27.8 °C	68 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
20 Nov	27.8 °C	68 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
21 Nov	27.9 °C	69 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
22 Nov	26.9 °C	74 %	38 km/h	0.9 mm	Low 6
23 Nov	27.6 °C	65 %	33 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 8
24 Nov	27.8 °C	71 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 8
25 Nov	27.6 °C	68 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
26 Nov	28.0 °C	69 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
27 Nov	27.3 °C	68 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 9
28 Nov	27.9 °C	64 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
29 Nov	28.0 °C	69 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
30 Nov after	28.1 °C	72 %	41 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 12
1 Dec after	28.6 °C	71 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
2 Dec after	29.1 °C	76 %	29 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 8
3 Dec after	29.7 °C	79 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 8
4 Dec after	29.5 °C	77 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
5 Dec after	29.9 °C	72 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
6 Dec after	29.1 °C	73 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
7 Dec after	29.3 °C	66 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
8 Dec after	29.3 °C	59 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
9 Dec after	27.9 °C	78 %	43 km/h	2.1 mm	Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 24 Oct 2019

After · 6 Dec 2019

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.

Detections table · 737Every 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 Lockhart River fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 October 2019 and 29 November 2019: 30 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 10,224 hectares (102.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Lockhart River (10,119 ha, 2.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 62 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 737 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 2020, 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.

Where it burned