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Maranoa fire, November 2016 Maranoa, Central Highlands (Qld)

Out · last detection 6 Dec 2016, 14:54 UTC

The fire started on 13 November 2016 in Maranoa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,641 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 427th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 85 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
15,641ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
13 Nov 2016 – 6 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
13 Nov
2016
Heat detections
967
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Nov6 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192021222324252627282930123456

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
50km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.1 mm on 9 Dec.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Maranoa where it started
    8,025 ha reached on 13 Nov
    0.1 %
  2. Central Highlands (Qld)
    7,678 ha reached on 21 Nov
    0.1 %

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)
9 Nov 31.8 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Nov 35.8 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Nov 33.1 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Nov 34.6 °C 29 % 44 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 20
13 Nov 31.3 °C 21 % 42 km/h 7.9 mm Low 8
14 Nov 26.0 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Nov 25.3 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Nov 29.1 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Nov 28.6 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
18 Nov 28.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Nov 29.4 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Nov 30.7 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Nov 29.1 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Nov 29.9 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Nov 33.8 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Nov 33.4 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Nov 31.2 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Nov 26.2 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Nov 29.8 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Nov 29.9 °C 22 % 35 km/h 1.3 mm High 22
29 Nov 30.8 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
30 Nov 33.2 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
1 Dec 36.4 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Dec 38.5 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Dec 38.1 °C 17 % 37 km/h 4.5 mm High 22
4 Dec 37.3 °C 21 % 47 km/h 1.3 mm High 30
5 Dec 36.4 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
6 Dec 36.6 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm High 31
7 Dec after 33.7 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.8 mm High 23
8 Dec after 33.1 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm High 28
9 Dec after 24.3 °C 48 % 26 km/h 13.1 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Nov 2016
After · 13 Dec 2016

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 · 967Every 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 Maranoa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 November 2016 and 6 December 2016: 24 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 15,641 hectares (156.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maranoa (8,025 ha, 0.1 %); Central Highlands (Qld) (7,678 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.