How long did the Mapoon fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2018 and 4 October 2018: 10 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 7,474 hectares (74.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mapoon (7,517 ha, 14 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 · 2018-09-25 → 2018-10-04

Mapoon fire, September 2018 Mapoon

Out · last detection 4 Oct 2018, 03:37 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2018 in Mapoon, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,474 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1078th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 569 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 7,474ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 25 Sept 2018 – 4 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 25 Sept; 2018
Heat detections: 260; in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 4 Oct 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept4 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2526272829301234

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

57km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,836 ha in 2016, 1,053 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,716 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mapoon where it started

7,517 ha reached on 25 Sept

14 %

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)
18 Sept	34.3 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
19 Sept	34.5 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
20 Sept	35.5 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
21 Sept	33.5 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
22 Sept	34.6 °C	28 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
23 Sept	34.6 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
24 Sept	33.5 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
25 Sept	34.2 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
26 Sept	34.5 °C	25 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
27 Sept	35.0 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
28 Sept	34.4 °C	18 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
29 Sept	33.8 °C	23 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
30 Sept	33.5 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
1 Oct	34.8 °C	28 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
2 Oct	34.8 °C	31 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
3 Oct	34.9 °C	29 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
4 Oct	34.3 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 46
5 Oct after	31.4 °C	41 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
6 Oct after	33.3 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Oct after	34.4 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Oct after	34.3 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 40
9 Oct after	35.6 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
10 Oct after	36.2 °C	25 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
11 Oct after	33.9 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
12 Oct after	34.6 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
13 Oct after	35.2 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
14 Oct after	34.6 °C	45 %	34 km/h	0.9 mm	High 25
15 Oct after	35.6 °C	39 %	42 km/h	0.2 mm	High 34
16 Oct after	36.0 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Oct after	36.0 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.9 mm	High 36
18 Oct after	34.2 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
19 Oct after	35.9 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
20 Oct after	35.3 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Oct after	34.7 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Sept 2018

After · 11 Oct 2018

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 · 260Every 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 Mapoon fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2018 and 4 October 2018: 10 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 7,474 hectares (74.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mapoon (7,517 ha, 14 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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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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