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Mareeba fire, 7 September 2019 Mareeba

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2019, 04:07 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2019 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 133,164 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the 16th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 18 in Australia in 2019, of 802.

Burnt area
133,164ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
39days
7 Sept 2019 – 15 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
7 Sept
2019
Heat detections
5,368
in a single hotspot: 154 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
56.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213141516171819202122232425262728293012345678910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
55km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 53,973 ha in 2016, 4,049 ha in 2017, 227 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 55,247 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba where it started
    133,882 ha reached on 7 Sept
    2.5 %

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)
7 Sept 33.7 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Sept 33.8 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
9 Sept 32.0 °C 4 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
10 Sept 32.0 °C 5 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
11 Sept 31.1 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
12 Sept 31.5 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Sept 31.3 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Sept 32.7 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
15 Sept 32.9 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
16 Sept 32.7 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
17 Sept 33.1 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Sept 35.6 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Sept 35.0 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
20 Sept 35.0 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
21 Sept 35.1 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Sept 34.4 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
23 Sept 34.7 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
24 Sept 34.4 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
25 Sept 34.3 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
26 Sept 35.6 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
27 Sept 35.8 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
28 Sept 37.3 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Sept 37.5 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Sept 37.9 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
1 Oct 37.8 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
2 Oct 36.7 °C 16 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
3 Oct 35.5 °C 13 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
4 Oct 34.3 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
5 Oct 34.0 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
6 Oct 34.2 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
7 Oct 36.4 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Oct 38.0 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
9 Oct 38.3 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Oct 36.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Oct 36.2 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Oct 36.6 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Oct 37.4 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
14 Oct 36.8 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Oct 37.9 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Oct after 38.3 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Oct after 36.7 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Oct after 38.5 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
19 Oct after 39.6 °C 4 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
20 Oct after 39.3 °C 5 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
21 Oct after 37.2 °C 7 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
22 Oct after 36.1 °C 22 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
23 Oct after 36.1 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
24 Oct after 36.0 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
25 Oct after 36.0 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2019
After · 22 Oct 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 · 5,368Every 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 7 September 2019 and 15 October 2019: 39 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 133,164 hectares (1,331.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (133,882 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, class Very 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.