How long did the Maranoa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 October 2023 and 1 November 2023: 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 10,906 hectares (109.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Maranoa (10,876 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class 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.

AU · Australia · 2023-10-16 → 2023-11-01

Maranoa fire, October 2023 Maranoa

Out · last detection 1 Nov 2023, 04:11 UTC

The fire started on 16 October 2023 in Maranoa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,906 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 683th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 505 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area: 10,906ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 16 Oct 2023 – 1 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 16 Oct; 2023
Heat detections: 856; in a single hotspot: 89 MW
Danger at start: 54; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 6.0GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Nov 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct1 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

16171820222324252627282930311

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

48km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 58 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 5 Nov.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 802 ha in 2016, 8,729 ha in 2017, 211 ha in 2019, 961 ha in 2020, 1,328 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,391 ha that had burned before.

7,756 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

10,876 ha reached on 16 Oct

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)
16 Oct	33.7 °C	12 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
17 Oct	29.9 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
18 Oct	30.4 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
19 Oct	30.7 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 43
20 Oct	32.9 °C	16 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 Oct	34.1 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Oct	35.5 °C	16 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
23 Oct	35.7 °C	10 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
24 Oct	37.2 °C	12 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
25 Oct	37.7 °C	13 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
26 Oct	26.9 °C	15 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
27 Oct	24.6 °C	19 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
28 Oct	27.3 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
29 Oct	29.5 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
30 Oct	32.6 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
31 Oct	35.8 °C	13 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
1 Nov	34.3 °C	13 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
2 Nov after	33.1 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
3 Nov after	31.8 °C	26 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
4 Nov after	31.9 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
5 Nov after	30.2 °C	29 %	45 km/h	1.1 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Oct 2023

After · 8 Nov 2023

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 18 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak61 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1088 µg/m³

Optical depth1.02

WHO 15

1415161718192021222324252627282930311234

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 856Every 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 October 2023 and 1 November 2023: 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 10,906 hectares (109.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Maranoa (10,876 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class 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.

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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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.

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