How long did the Maranoa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 January 2019 and 1 February 2019: 17 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 8,651 hectares (86.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Central Highlands (Qld) (4,466 ha, 0.1 %); Maranoa (4,222 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

AU · Australia · 2019-01-16 → 2019-02-01

Maranoa fire, 16 January 2019 Central Highlands (Qld), Maranoa

Out · last detection 1 Feb 2019, 04:23 UTC

The fire started on 16 January 2019 in Maranoa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,651 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 905th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 440 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

The power measured by the satellite is low (27.1 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: 8,651ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 16 Jan 2019 – 1 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 16 Jan; 2019
Heat detections: 531; in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Feb 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jan1 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021222324252627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

46km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 11 Feb.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,815 ha in 2016, 448 ha in 2017, 61 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,872 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Central Highlands (Qld)

4,466 ha reached on 16 Jan

0.1 %
Maranoa where it started

4,222 ha reached on 16 Jan

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)
16 Jan	33.9 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
17 Jan	32.4 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
18 Jan	31.2 °C	25 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 Jan	32.7 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
20 Jan	34.2 °C	16 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
21 Jan	32.4 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Jan	32.1 °C	27 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
23 Jan	33.7 °C	23 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
24 Jan	33.9 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
25 Jan	32.5 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
26 Jan	33.3 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
27 Jan	32.6 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
28 Jan	33.4 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
29 Jan	30.1 °C	27 %	44 km/h	0.3 mm	High 32
30 Jan	28.1 °C	36 %	46 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
31 Jan	29.5 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
1 Feb	30.9 °C	19 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
2 Feb after	27.6 °C	36 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
3 Feb after	27.8 °C	33 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Feb after	30.5 °C	26 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Feb after	30.3 °C	28 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Feb after	27.8 °C	41 %	43 km/h	0.7 mm	High 23
7 Feb after	27.0 °C	40 %	46 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
8 Feb after	33.3 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
9 Feb after	34.1 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
10 Feb after	35.9 °C	17 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
11 Feb after	33.7 °C	25 %	37 km/h	4.4 mm	Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Jan 2019

After · 8 Feb 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 · 531Every 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 16 January 2019 and 1 February 2019: 17 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 8,651 hectares (86.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Central Highlands (Qld) (4,466 ha, 0.1 %); Maranoa (4,222 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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