Burned area
satellite only80,747ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 3 Oct 2019 – 21 Oct 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
AU · Australia · –
Maralinga Tjarutja fire, October 2019 Maralinga Tjarutja
Out · last detection 21 Oct 2019, 17:07 UTC
The fire started on 3 October 2019 in Maralinga Tjarutja, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 80,747 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the largest fire in South Australia since 2016 (of 69 with a page). Number 22 in Australia in 2019, of 288.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only19days
3 Oct 2019 to 21 Oct 2019: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 21 Oct 2019, 17:07 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only3 Oct 2019
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 3 Oct 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only4,148
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 464 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 3 Oct 2019 – 21 Oct 2019
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only28,627MW
Total radiative power on 5 October 2019; hotspots that day: 2,059.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 5 Oct 2019
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model58.6FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 12.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 3 Oct 2019, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model40.9°C · 6% RH
High of 40.9 °C and minimum humidity of 6% on 4 October 2019; gusts of 59 km/h on 4 October 2019.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 3 Oct 2019 – 21 Oct 2019
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 14 October 2019 → 21 October 2019.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 80,747 ha
- Dates
- 3 Oct 2019 – 21 Oct 2019
- Name
- Maralinga Tjarutja
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/maralinga-tjarutja-2019-10?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire maralinga-tjarutja-2019-10.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-10-03 | 0 | 0 | 40.3 | 21.4 | 8 | 13 | 34.6 | 0 | 58.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-04 | 1,456 | 25,598 | 40.9 | 25.4 | 6 | 30.8 | 59.4 | 0 | 107 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-05 | 2,059 | 28,627 | 37.4 | 26.2 | 9 | 25.9 | 46.8 | 0 | 79.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-06 | 242 | 2,173 | 29 | 15.3 | 21 | 19 | 34.2 | 0 | 44.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-10-07 | 56 | 273 | 24.6 | 10.8 | 28 | 19.7 | 37.1 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-10-08 | 100 | 1,004 | 24.8 | 9.1 | 20 | 20.6 | 40.7 | 0 | 42.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-10-09 | 46 | 856 | 30.2 | 9.9 | 10 | 16.2 | 36.7 | 0 | 52.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-10 | 54 | 659 | 36.4 | 16.9 | 7 | 17.3 | 34.6 | 0 | 52.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-11 | 51 | 861 | 40.1 | 22.9 | 8 | 25.3 | 47.9 | 0 | 89.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-12 | 5 | 6 | 34.9 | 19.1 | 10 | 30 | 50.8 | 0 | 62.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-13 | 10 | 19 | 33.1 | 16.7 | 19 | 27.7 | 51.1 | 0 | 55.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-14 | 1 | 1 | 32.5 | 13.4 | 21 | 22.7 | 43.9 | 0 | 69.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-15 | 0 | 0 | 33.1 | 17.4 | 19 | 30.7 | 54.7 | 0 | 66.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-16 | 3 | 4 | 23.6 | 11.4 | 18 | 24.2 | 48.2 | 0 | 58.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-17 | 11 | 125 | 25.1 | 8.5 | 16 | 20.2 | 37.1 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-10-18 | 14 | 181 | 31.6 | 11.6 | 10 | 17.9 | 33.5 | 0 | 48.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-10-19 | 11 | 50 | 29.3 | 11.7 | 19 | 24.3 | 46.4 | 0 | 67.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-20 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 17.4 | 13 | 21.7 | 44.6 | 0 | 70.2 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-21 | 29 | 1,263 | 35.1 | 20.1 | 13 | 21.9 | 40.7 | 0 | 68.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2019-10-22 | 0 | 0 | 35.5 | 20.2 | 10 | 19.8 | 40 | 0 | 58.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2019-10-23 | 0 | 0 | 36.6 | 21.8 | 11 | 18.5 | 41.4 | 0 | 65.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2019-10-24 | 0 | 0 | 36.3 | 17.3 | 11 | 30.4 | 61.2 | 0.2 | 100.9 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2019-10-25 | 0 | 0 | 27.9 | 10.1 | 11 | 18.7 | 37.4 | 0 | 54.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2019-10-26 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 10.8 | 22 | 19.2 | 37.8 | 0 | 50.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2019-10-27 | 0 | 0 | 28.8 | 11.5 | 16 | 18.6 | 36.7 | 0 | 52.5 | extremo | 0 |
| 2019-10-28 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 14.6 | 9 | 20.1 | 41 | 0 | 69.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2019-10-29 | 0 | 0 | 36.1 | 20.3 | 8 | 21.6 | 43.9 | 0 | 76.2 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2019-10-30 | 0 | 0 | 38.6 | 20 | 6 | 23.1 | 47.9 | 0 | 82.3 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2019-10-31 | 0 | 0 | 40.1 | 24.7 | 6 | 28.4 | 59 | 0 | 94.8 | muy_extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 80,747ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 3 Oct 2019 – 21 Oct 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 3 Oct
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 4,148
- in a single hotspot: 464 MW
- Danger at start
- 59
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 3.9GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
3 Oct21 Oct
21 Oct 2019
How it evolved, day by day
5 Oct
8 Oct
12 Oct
17 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
41°high
59km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity
It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 758 ha in 2018.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Maralinga Tjarutja where it started80,360 ha reached on 4 Oct0.8 %
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 2020Built-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)
Started with Very dry air: 28 % of the area in Australia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Oct | 40.3 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 4 Oct | 40.9 °C | 6 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 107 |
| 5 Oct | 37.4 °C | 9 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 79 |
| 6 Oct | 29.0 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Oct | 24.6 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 8 Oct | 24.8 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Oct | 30.2 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 10 Oct | 36.4 °C | 7 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 11 Oct | 40.1 °C | 8 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 90 |
| 12 Oct | 34.9 °C | 10 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 13 Oct | 33.1 °C | 19 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 14 Oct | 32.5 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 15 Oct | 33.1 °C | 19 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 16 Oct | 23.6 °C | 18 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Oct | 25.1 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Oct | 31.6 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 19 Oct | 29.3 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 20 Oct | 31.8 °C | 13 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 21 Oct | 35.1 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 22 Oct after | 35.5 °C | 10 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 23 Oct after | 36.6 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 24 Oct after | 36.3 °C | 11 % | 61 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very extreme 101 |
| 25 Oct after | 27.9 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 26 Oct after | 27.0 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 27 Oct after | 28.8 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 28 Oct after | 34.2 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 29 Oct after | 36.1 °C | 8 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 30 Oct after | 38.6 °C | 6 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 82 |
| 31 Oct after | 40.1 °C | 6 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 95 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 58.6, a minimum humidity of 8% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 16.
FWI at the start
58.6
Minimum humidity
8 %
Days without rain
12
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Maralinga Tjarutja fire, October 2019
80,747 ha
19 days
FWI 58.6
Min. humidity 8 %
Maralinga Tjarutja fire, December 2019
22,815 ha
15 days
FWI 64.3
Min. humidity 9 %
22 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.6 mm on 3 Jan.
Laverton fire, December 2019
6,292 ha
3 days
FWI 58.1
Min. humidity 11 %
168 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Laverton fire, December 2019
9,292 ha
3 days
FWI 58.0
Min. humidity 14 %
154 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Maralinga Tjarutja fire, December 2019
23,666 ha
10 days
FWI 67.7
Min. humidity 9 %
54 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.0 mm on 3 Jan.
Laverton fire, December 2019
13,381 ha
17 days
FWI 62.1
Min. humidity 14 %
120 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.8 mm on 3 Jan.
What happened to them
- 7 days
- median duration
- 9,576 ha
- median area
- 44 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- 4.7 mm
- rain at the end (median; 8 of 16 had it)
It was 8.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 19 days, against 7 days.
None of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 8 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.7 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
59km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 21 Oct, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 8 of 16, with a median of 4.7 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2017.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 26 Sept 2019
After · 28 Oct 2019
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 4,148Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Maralinga Tjarutja fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 October 2019 to 21 October 2019 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 October 2019 to 14 October 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 80,747 hectares (807.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Maralinga Tjarutja (80,360 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 107, class Very 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 16. Their median duration was 7 days and their median area 9,576 ha; 44 % went past 10,000 ha. None of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 8 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.7 mm.
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.
- Last day with fire: 14 October 2019 → 21 October 2019.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 October 2019 to 14 October 2019. 4,148 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.
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.