Mareeba fire, September 2018 Mareeba
The fire started on 13 September 2018 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,512 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 815th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 417 in Australia in 2018, of 923.
- Burnt area
- 9,512ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 13 Sept 2018 – 21 Sept 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 13 Sept
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 336
- in a single hotspot: 98 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 476 ha in 2016, 885 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,284 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Mareeba where it started9,548 ha reached on 13 Sept0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Sept | 23.4 °C | 63 % | 43 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Sept | 23.8 °C | 52 % | 46 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 15 Sept | 24.2 °C | 59 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Sept | 26.2 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Sept | 25.7 °C | 46 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 18 Sept | 23.8 °C | 54 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 19 Sept | 23.4 °C | 61 % | 43 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 22 |
| 20 Sept | 24.5 °C | 52 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 21 Sept | 25.1 °C | 55 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 22 Sept after | 23.7 °C | 58 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Sept after | 22.7 °C | 61 % | 55 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 24 Sept after | 23.3 °C | 52 % | 52 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 25 Sept after | 23.2 °C | 58 % | 49 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 26 Sept after | 23.3 °C | 54 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 27 Sept after | 23.7 °C | 49 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Sept after | 23.7 °C | 51 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 29 Sept after | 23.7 °C | 52 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Sept after | 24.7 °C | 47 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 1 Oct after | 24.0 °C | 56 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 2 Oct after | 23.5 °C | 51 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Oct after | 22.8 °C | 58 % | 50 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Oct after | 23.8 °C | 49 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 5 Oct after | 26.3 °C | 48 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 6 Oct after | 25.3 °C | 59 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 336Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mareeba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 September 2018 and 21 September 2018: 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 9,512 hectares (95.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mareeba (9,548 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.2 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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
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.