Skip to content
worldfires
AU · Australia · →

Mareeba fire, 14 November 2020 Mareeba

Out · last detection 25 Nov 2020, 15:03 UTC

The fire started on 14 November 2020 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 41,865 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 128th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 15 in Australia in 2020, of 320.

Burnt area
41,865ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
14 Nov 2020 – 25 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Nov
2020
Heat detections
1,822
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
12.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Nov 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Nov25 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
75km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,150 ha in 2017, 348 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba where it started
    42,116 ha reached on 14 Nov
    0.8 %

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)
14 Nov 37.8 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Nov 39.2 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Nov 40.3 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
17 Nov 39.8 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
18 Nov 38.6 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
19 Nov 37.3 °C 17 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
20 Nov 35.7 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
21 Nov 37.4 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Nov 38.2 °C 16 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
23 Nov 37.7 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Nov 38.3 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Nov 33.3 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Nov after 38.6 °C 20 % 75 km/h 1.5 mm Very extreme 72
27 Nov after 36.0 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
28 Nov after 36.9 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Nov after 36.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Nov after 37.0 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Dec after 39.1 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Dec after 39.4 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Dec after 38.1 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
4 Dec after 38.2 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Dec after 37.6 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
6 Dec after 38.2 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Dec after 38.3 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Nov 2020
After · 2 Dec 2020

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 · 1,822Every 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 14 November 2020 and 25 November 2020: 12 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 41,865 hectares (418.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (42,116 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 75 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.