Skip to content
worldfires
en
AU · Australia · →

Lockhart River fire, November 2019 Lockhart River

Out · last detection 4 Dec 2019, 03:49 UTC

The fire started on 1 November 2019 in Lockhart River, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 29,369 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 185th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1743 with a page). Number 101 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cook · 2016Lockhart River · 2018Cook · 2025Cook · 2023

Burnt area
29,369ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
1 Nov 2019 – 4 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
1 Nov
2019
Heat detections
1,737
in a single hotspot: 185 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
549MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Nov4 Dec
4 Dec 2019

How it evolved, day by day

1 Nov 2019 · 67 MW · 7 2 Nov 2019 · 22 MW · 3 3 Nov 2019 · 17 MW · 2 4 Nov 2019 · 949 MW · 30 5 Nov 2019 · 120 MW · 27 6 Nov 2019 · 558 MW · 57 7 Nov 2019 · 1,489 MW · 28 9 Nov 2019 · 34 MW · 26 10 Nov 2019 · 301 MW · 75 11 Nov 2019 · 1,871 MW · 218 12 Nov 2019 · 3,405 MW · 261 13 Nov 2019 · 758 MW · 74 14 Nov 2019 · 674 MW · 105 15 Nov 2019 · 842 MW · 98 16 Nov 2019 · 201 MW · 16 17 Nov 2019 · 1,117 MW · 119 18 Nov 2019 · 1,279 MW · 124 19 Nov 2019 · 142 MW · 20 20 Nov 2019 · 446 MW · 67 21 Nov 2019 · 592 MW · 79 22 Nov 2019 · 497 MW · 101 23 Nov 2019 · 519 MW · 68 24 Nov 2019 · 338 MW · 32 25 Nov 2019 · 35 MW · 14 26 Nov 2019 · 19 MW · 3 27 Nov 2019 · 154 MW · 32 28 Nov 2019 · 237 MW · 26 29 Nov 2019 · 270 MW · 12 1 Dec 2019 · 1 MW · 1 3 Dec 2019 · 39 MW · 8 4 Dec 2019 · 25 MW · 4
1 Nov 6 Nov 12 Nov 17 Nov 22 Nov 27 Nov 4 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
52km/h · peak gust
46%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 9 Dec.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,172 ha in 2016, 10,133 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,002 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 19% of the area of London (294 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. Lockhart River where it started
    29,545 ha reached on 1 Nov
    8.2 %

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)
1 Nov 28.2 °C 59 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
2 Nov 28.2 °C 57 % 52 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 16
3 Nov 28.1 °C 58 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
4 Nov 28.3 °C 52 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
5 Nov 28.0 °C 53 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
6 Nov 28.5 °C 50 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Nov 28.7 °C 51 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
8 Nov 28.9 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
9 Nov 30.8 °C 50 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
10 Nov 31.4 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Nov 29.0 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
12 Nov 27.8 °C 49 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
13 Nov 29.4 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Nov 30.2 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Nov 28.7 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
16 Nov 29.5 °C 51 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Nov 30.0 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
18 Nov 30.1 °C 48 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Nov 29.9 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
20 Nov 30.2 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Nov 29.7 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
22 Nov 27.9 °C 59 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
23 Nov 29.1 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
24 Nov 29.4 °C 53 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
25 Nov 29.6 °C 51 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
26 Nov 30.5 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
27 Nov 29.5 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
28 Nov 29.5 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Nov 29.4 °C 51 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Nov 29.4 °C 56 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
1 Dec 31.4 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
2 Dec 31.3 °C 58 % 30 km/h 1.5 mm Low 11
3 Dec 32.3 °C 54 % 30 km/h 3.1 mm Low 7
4 Dec 31.1 °C 63 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 12
5 Dec after 31.6 °C 55 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 17
6 Dec after 31.0 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
7 Dec after 31.2 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Dec after 31.5 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Dec after 28.4 °C 68 % 47 km/h 1.7 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Oct 2019
After · 11 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 · 1,737Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lockhart River fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 November 2019 to 4 December 2019 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 November 2019 to 28 November 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 29,369 hectares (293.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lockhart River (29,545 ha, 8.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 28 November 2019 → 4 December 2019.

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
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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 November 2019 to 28 November 2019. 1,737 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.