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Mareeba fire, 28 August 2019 Mareeba

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2019, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2019 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 35,623 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 156th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 83 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
35,623ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
28 Aug 2019 – 10 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
28 Aug
2019
Heat detections
1,373
in a single hotspot: 209 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
17.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112345678910

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
43km/h · peak gust
3%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12,133 ha in 2016, 1,576 ha in 2017, 53 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba where it started
    35,800 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
28 Aug 32.1 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Aug 31.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
30 Aug 31.7 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Aug 32.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Sept 32.8 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Sept 33.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Sept 34.1 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Sept 33.8 °C 6 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Sept 32.3 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Sept 32.6 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Sept 34.1 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Sept 34.3 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
9 Sept 32.3 °C 3 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
10 Sept 32.4 °C 5 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
11 Sept after 31.6 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
12 Sept after 32.0 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
13 Sept after 31.8 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Sept after 33.1 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
15 Sept after 33.5 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
16 Sept after 33.2 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Sept after 33.4 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Sept after 35.8 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept after 35.4 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
20 Sept after 35.0 °C 15 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2019
After · 17 Sept 2019

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 · 1,373Every 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 28 August 2019 and 10 September 2019: 14 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 35,623 hectares (356.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (35,800 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.