How long did the Maranoa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 December 2018 and 7 January 2019: 22 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 20,515 hectares (205.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maranoa (11,178 ha, 0.2 %); Murweh (9,229 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

AU · Australia · 2018-12-17 → 2019-01-07

Maranoa fire, 17 December 2018 Maranoa, Murweh

Out · last detection 7 Jan 2019, 15:06 UTC

The fire started on 17 December 2018 in Maranoa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,515 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 306th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 138 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area: 20,515ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 22days; 17 Dec 2018 – 7 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 17 Dec; 2018
Heat detections: 1,394; in a single hotspot: 176 MW
Danger at start: 22; High · FWI index
Energy released: 12.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 7 Jan 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Dec7 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

17181920222324252627282930311234567

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

46km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 232 ha in 2016, 1,302 ha in 2017.

886 ha Maranoa fire, September 2017 107,409 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Maranoa where it started

11,178 ha reached on 17 Dec

0.2 %
Murweh

9,229 ha reached on 26 Dec

0.2 %

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)
17 Dec	33.6 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
18 Dec	34.3 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
19 Dec	35.1 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
20 Dec	36.0 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
21 Dec	38.4 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
22 Dec	33.7 °C	25 %	37 km/h	2.9 mm	Moderate 13
23 Dec	31.7 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
24 Dec	30.3 °C	20 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
25 Dec	30.4 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
26 Dec	32.1 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
27 Dec	32.4 °C	16 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
28 Dec	31.9 °C	24 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Dec	32.4 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
30 Dec	32.9 °C	19 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
31 Dec	33.2 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Jan	33.6 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
2 Jan	32.6 °C	23 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Jan	33.0 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Jan	33.4 °C	22 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Jan	33.7 °C	20 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
6 Jan	35.0 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
7 Jan	33.0 °C	20 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Jan after	31.4 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Jan after	27.8 °C	53 %	39 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 12
10 Jan after	32.2 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.3 mm	High 22
11 Jan after	33.9 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Jan after	34.7 °C	15 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
13 Jan after	34.8 °C	18 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
14 Jan after	33.0 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
15 Jan after	34.6 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
16 Jan after	37.0 °C	20 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
17 Jan after	36.1 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Jan after	34.8 °C	18 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
19 Jan after	35.8 °C	15 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
20 Jan after	35.9 °C	14 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
21 Jan after	34.7 °C	21 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
22 Jan after	35.1 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
23 Jan after	37.2 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
24 Jan after	36.3 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Dec 2018

After · 14 Jan 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 · 1,394Every 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 Maranoa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 December 2018 and 7 January 2019: 22 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 20,515 hectares (205.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maranoa (11,178 ha, 0.2 %); Murweh (9,229 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned