How long did the Maranoa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2024 and 25 September 2024: 20 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 52,730 hectares (527.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maranoa (52,605 ha, 0.9 %); Murweh (7 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 · 2024-09-06 → 2024-09-25

Maranoa fire, 6 September 2024 Maranoa, Murweh

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2024, 15:56 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2024 in Maranoa, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 52,730 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 92th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 28 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 52,730ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 20days; 6 Sept 2024 – 25 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 6 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 3,420; in a single hotspot: 171 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 29.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Sept 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept25 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

48km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.0 mm on 2 Oct.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,191 ha in 2017, 3,952 ha in 2020, 6,679 ha in 2021, 2,277 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,860 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Maranoa where it started

52,605 ha reached on 4 Sept

0.9 %
Murweh

7 ha

0.0 %

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)
4 Sept	24.1 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Sept	25.0 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
6 Sept	24.9 °C	38 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
7 Sept	27.4 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
8 Sept	29.3 °C	23 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
9 Sept	27.8 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
10 Sept	27.8 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
11 Sept	28.3 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Sept	26.6 °C	39 %	48 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
13 Sept	21.8 °C	27 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
14 Sept	23.5 °C	33 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
15 Sept	23.3 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Sept	21.8 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
17 Sept	23.3 °C	13 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
18 Sept	26.5 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
19 Sept	27.4 °C	26 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 Sept	27.4 °C	12 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
21 Sept	24.5 °C	20 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
22 Sept	25.7 °C	16 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Sept	26.9 °C	16 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 Sept	28.7 °C	18 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
25 Sept	30.3 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
26 Sept after	26.4 °C	41 %	42 km/h	5.4 mm	Low 7
27 Sept after	23.1 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
28 Sept after	22.5 °C	38 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
29 Sept after	27.2 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
30 Sept after	29.4 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
1 Oct after	27.2 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
2 Oct after	25.6 °C	43 %	40 km/h	9.0 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Aug 2024

After · 2 Oct 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 25 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10155 µg/m³

Optical depth1.83

WHO 15

45678910111213141516171819202122232425262728

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 · 3,420Every 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 6 September 2024 and 25 September 2024: 20 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 52,730 hectares (527.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maranoa (52,605 ha, 0.9 %); Murweh (7 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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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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