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Mareeba fire, September 2021 Mareeba

Out · last detection 11 Oct 2021, 03:54 UTC

The fire started on 22 September 2021 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,499 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 233th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 46 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
25,499ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
22 Sept 2021 – 11 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Sept
2021
Heat detections
1,071
in a single hotspot: 231 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Oct 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Sept11 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829301234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
61km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 21.6 mm on 15 Oct.

This area had burned before

54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,771 ha in 2016, 836 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,815 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba where it started
    25,630 ha reached on 22 Sept
    0.5 %

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)
22 Sept 26.5 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Sept 25.5 °C 35 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Sept 26.8 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept 30.8 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Sept 31.9 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Sept 31.3 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Sept 29.6 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Sept 29.0 °C 41 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Sept 29.2 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Oct 31.3 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Oct 33.9 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Oct 35.1 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Oct 35.2 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Oct 35.3 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Oct 32.6 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Oct 32.5 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Oct 32.0 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Oct 31.0 °C 35 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Oct 31.5 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Oct 31.8 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Oct after 33.7 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Oct after 33.8 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Oct after 34.8 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
15 Oct after 31.8 °C 39 % 31 km/h 21.6 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Sept 2021
After · 18 Oct 2021

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 · 1,071Every 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 22 September 2021 and 11 October 2021: 20 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 25,499 hectares (255.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (25,630 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
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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.