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Mareeba fire, 7 October 2016 Mareeba

Out · last detection 12 Oct 2016, 15:23 UTC

The fire started on 7 October 2016 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,374 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 730th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 150 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
10,374ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
7 Oct 2016 – 11 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
7 Oct
2016
Heat detections
290
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Oct11 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

789101112

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
51km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba where it started
    10,432 ha reached on 7 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)
2 Oct 39.2 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
3 Oct 35.6 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Oct 37.4 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Oct 36.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Oct 37.2 °C 11 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
7 Oct 37.5 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
8 Oct 37.7 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
9 Oct 38.1 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
10 Oct 39.0 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Oct 38.1 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Oct after 37.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Oct after 36.8 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Oct after 37.6 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Oct after 36.7 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Oct after 36.5 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Oct after 34.7 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Oct after 37.6 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Oct after 39.6 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Oct after 39.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Oct after 39.8 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
22 Oct after 36.3 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
23 Oct after 33.9 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Sept 2016
After · 18 Oct 2016

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 · 290Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mareeba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 October 2016 and 11 October 2016: 5 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 10,374 hectares (103.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (10,432 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.