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Mareeba fire, 22 December 2017 Mareeba

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

The fire started on 22 December 2017 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,406 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 950th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 442 in Australia in 2017, of 862.

Burnt area
8,406ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
22 Dec 2017 – 30 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Dec
2017
Heat detections
258
in a single hotspot: 132 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Dec30 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

222425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
48km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 2 Jan.

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
    8,471 ha reached on 18 Dec
    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)
18 Dec 39.7 °C 7 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Dec 39.0 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Dec 38.4 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Dec 37.7 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Dec 39.6 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Dec 39.3 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 Dec 39.0 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
25 Dec 40.4 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
26 Dec 39.4 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Dec 39.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
28 Dec 39.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Dec 40.0 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
30 Dec 40.6 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Dec after 41.8 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Jan after 38.6 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Jan after 38.7 °C 34 % 36 km/h 3.0 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Dec 2017
After · 6 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 · 258Every 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 22 December 2017 and 30 December 2017: 9 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 8,406 hectares (84.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (8,471 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.8 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.