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Mareeba fire, May 2018 Mareeba, Cook

Out · last detection 16 May 2018, 04:19 UTC

The fire started on 4 May 2018 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,508 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 536th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 249 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
13,508ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
4 May 2018 – 16 May 2018
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
4 May
2018
Heat detections
454
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 May 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 May16 May

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
44km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 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
    11,111 ha reached on 4 May
    0.2 %
  2. Cook
    2,455 ha reached on 9 May
    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 May 31.6 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 May 30.7 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 May 29.8 °C 42 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 May 30.6 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 May 29.8 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
9 May 30.9 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 May 31.6 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
11 May 31.6 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 May 31.3 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 May 30.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 May 30.5 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 May 29.1 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 May 26.6 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 May after 25.0 °C 60 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 May after 28.4 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 May after 28.5 °C 47 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
20 May after 29.5 °C 45 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 May after 29.7 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 May after 28.4 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 May after 28.8 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 May after 29.0 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 May after 28.7 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 May after 29.0 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Apr 2018
After · 23 May 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 · 454Every 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 4 May 2018 and 16 May 2018: 13 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 13,508 hectares (135.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (11,111 ha, 0.2 %); Cook (2,455 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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

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.