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Mareeba fire, August 2018 Mareeba

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2018, 04:19 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2018 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,147 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 552th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 263 in Australia in 2018, of 923.

Burnt area
13,147ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
18 Aug 2018 – 4 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
18 Aug
2018
Heat detections
411
in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242526272829303112345

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
50km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 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
    13,199 ha reached on 18 Aug
    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 Aug 28.8 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug 29.4 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Aug 25.5 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug 23.3 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Aug 26.2 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug 28.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug 26.7 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug 26.5 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Aug 28.8 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Aug 28.9 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Aug 26.8 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Aug 27.0 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Aug 26.4 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug 29.9 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Sept 31.0 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Sept 31.6 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Sept 31.1 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept 30.5 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Sept after 27.3 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Sept after 28.0 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept after 28.5 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Sept after 29.4 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Sept after 30.7 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept after 27.3 °C 38 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept after 25.9 °C 39 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept after 27.9 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Sept after 27.3 °C 41 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Sept after 27.5 °C 37 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Sept after 28.9 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Sept after 32.3 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2018
After · 11 Sept 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 · 411Every 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 18 August 2018 and 4 September 2018: 18 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 13,147 hectares (131.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (13,199 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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.