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Mareeba fire, 8 November 2016 Mareeba

Out · last detection 13 Nov 2016, 04:13 UTC

The fire started on 8 November 2016 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,314 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1311th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 306 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
6,314ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
8 Nov 2016 – 13 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
8 Nov
2016
Heat detections
171
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Nov13 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
49km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 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
    6,348 ha reached on 6 Nov
    0.1 %

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)
5 Nov 37.9 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 55
6 Nov 36.5 °C 30 % 49 km/h 1.8 mm High 35
7 Nov 38.0 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
8 Nov 37.9 °C 27 % 31 km/h 6.1 mm Moderate 15
9 Nov 37.8 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
10 Nov 40.1 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 47
11 Nov 41.4 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Nov 38.2 °C 32 % 47 km/h 5.4 mm High 23
13 Nov 37.9 °C 30 % 47 km/h 3.3 mm High 25
14 Nov after 37.9 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Nov after 38.8 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Nov after 39.4 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Nov after 39.0 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Nov after 37.9 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Nov after 36.6 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Nov after 36.6 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Nov after 37.8 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Nov after 38.3 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Nov after 39.0 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Nov 2016
After · 20 Nov 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 · 171Every 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 8 November 2016 and 13 November 2016: 6 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 6,314 hectares (63.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (6,348 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.