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Mareeba fire, 12 December 2017 Mareeba, Cook

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2017, 03:29 UTC

The fire started on 12 December 2017 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,625 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 472th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 193 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
14,625ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
12 Dec 2017 – 31 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
12 Dec
2017
Heat detections
662
in a single hotspot: 153 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Energy released
3.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Dec31 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516171819202122232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
46km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.6 mm on 2 Jan.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 210 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba where it started
    12,316 ha reached on 12 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Cook
    2,373 ha reached on 12 Dec
    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)
5 Dec 32.1 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
6 Dec 31.4 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
7 Dec 28.6 °C 58 % 28 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 5
8 Dec 29.4 °C 56 % 27 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 1
9 Dec 29.8 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
10 Dec 28.7 °C 46 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
11 Dec 27.8 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
12 Dec 27.7 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
13 Dec 27.0 °C 45 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm Low 10
14 Dec 29.4 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
15 Dec 29.9 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
16 Dec 30.1 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
17 Dec 29.0 °C 46 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
18 Dec 29.3 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Dec 30.7 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
20 Dec 31.3 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
21 Dec 29.9 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
22 Dec 30.2 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Dec 27.2 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.7 mm Low 11
24 Dec 29.1 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
25 Dec 30.0 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Dec 29.9 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
27 Dec 30.4 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
28 Dec 30.5 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
29 Dec 30.2 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Dec 31.7 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
31 Dec 32.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Jan after 33.0 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Jan after 32.8 °C 44 % 28 km/h 5.6 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Dec 2017
After · 7 Jan 2018

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 · 662Every 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 12 December 2017 and 31 December 2017: 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 14,625 hectares (146.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (12,316 ha, 0.2 %); Cook (2,373 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
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.

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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.