How long did the Maranoa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 November 2020 and 28 November 2020: 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 15,321 hectares (153.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maranoa (10,201 ha, 0.2 %); Murweh (5,024 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 · 2020-11-12 → 2020-11-28

Maranoa fire, November 2020 Maranoa, Murweh

Out · last detection 29 Nov 2020, 15:30 UTC

The fire started on 12 November 2020 in Maranoa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,321 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 438th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 59 in Australia in 2020, of 320.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Maranoa · 2018 Murweh · 2024 Murweh · 2017 Central Highlands (Qld) · 2023

Burnt area: 15,321ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 12 Nov 2020 – 28 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 12 Nov; 2020
Heat detections: 1,633; in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 563MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Nov28 Nov

Play back 29 Nov 2020

How it evolved, day by day

12 Nov 16 Nov 19 Nov 22 Nov 25 Nov

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

54km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 7 Dec.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 49 ha in 2018, 568 ha in 2019.

49 ha Maranoa fire, December 2018 20,515 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 9.7% of the area of London (153 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Maranoa where it started

10,201 ha reached on 5 Nov

0.2 %
Murweh

5,024 ha reached on 5 Nov

0.1 %

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 2020

Built-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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
5 Nov	34.4 °C	13 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
6 Nov	30.0 °C	12 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
7 Nov	31.0 °C	18 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
8 Nov	23.5 °C	51 %	52 km/h	7.4 mm	Very low 3
9 Nov	22.5 °C	47 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
10 Nov	26.1 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
11 Nov	28.1 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
12 Nov	29.0 °C	30 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
13 Nov	29.1 °C	42 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
14 Nov	33.5 °C	18 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
15 Nov	36.5 °C	18 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
16 Nov	35.1 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
17 Nov	33.1 °C	26 %	40 km/h	2.0 mm	Moderate 16
18 Nov	32.5 °C	26 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
19 Nov	31.9 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
20 Nov	31.2 °C	22 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
21 Nov	32.0 °C	19 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Nov	32.1 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Nov	34.1 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
24 Nov	36.1 °C	18 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Nov	32.9 °C	27 %	37 km/h	2.2 mm	Moderate 19
26 Nov	33.0 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
27 Nov	32.1 °C	32 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
28 Nov	33.1 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
29 Nov after	35.0 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Nov after	38.1 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
1 Dec after	36.8 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
2 Dec after	38.1 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
3 Dec after	35.4 °C	21 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
4 Dec after	35.2 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
5 Dec after	36.8 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Dec after	37.4 °C	18 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
7 Dec after	34.2 °C	28 %	48 km/h	1.6 mm	High 28

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Nov 2020

After · 5 Dec 2020

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 · 1,633Every 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 12 November 2020 and 28 November 2020: 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 15,321 hectares (153.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maranoa (10,201 ha, 0.2 %); Murweh (5,024 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,633 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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