How long did the Maranoa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2024 and 4 September 2024: 10 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 8,843 hectares (88.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Maranoa (8,809 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 44 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 · 2024-08-26 → 2024-09-04

Maranoa fire, August 2024 Maranoa

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2024, 15:50 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2024 in Maranoa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,843 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 881th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 296 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 8,843ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 26 Aug 2024 – 4 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 26 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 612; in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start: 25; High · FWI index
Energy released: 6.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 4 Sept 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2627282930311234

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

44km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 586 ha in 2016, 1,316 ha in 2018, 178 ha in 2020, 949 ha in 2021, 1,768 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,668 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Maranoa where it started

8,809 ha reached on 26 Aug

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)
26 Aug	31.9 °C	22 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
27 Aug	30.8 °C	26 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
28 Aug	31.7 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
29 Aug	32.7 °C	13 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
30 Aug	34.5 °C	14 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Aug	35.1 °C	16 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
1 Sept	33.6 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
2 Sept	31.8 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
3 Sept	24.0 °C	12 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
4 Sept	24.3 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Sept after	24.8 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
6 Sept after	24.8 °C	37 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 Sept after	28.1 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
8 Sept after	30.1 °C	17 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
9 Sept after	28.5 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
10 Sept after	28.8 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
11 Sept after	27.8 °C	33 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 Sept after	27.0 °C	36 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
13 Sept after	22.4 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Sept after	24.2 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Sept after	24.5 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
16 Sept after	22.4 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Aug 2024

After · 11 Sept 2024

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 31 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1063 µg/m³

Optical depth0.39

WHO 15

24252627282930311234567

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 · 612Every 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 26 August 2024 and 4 September 2024: 10 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 8,843 hectares (88.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Maranoa (8,809 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 44 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.

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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