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Mareeba fire, 22 October 2021 Mareeba

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2021, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2021 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,336 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 308th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 65 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
20,336ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
22 Oct 2021 – 1 Nov 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Oct
2021
Heat detections
862
in a single hotspot: 143 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Nov 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct1 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
53km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 146 ha in 2016, 1,910 ha in 2017, 4,535 ha in 2019, 513 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,542 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba where it started
    20,477 ha reached on 21 Oct
    0.4 %

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)
20 Oct 40.7 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Oct 39.6 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
22 Oct 39.0 °C 24 % 53 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 59
23 Oct 37.1 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Oct 39.4 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
25 Oct 38.3 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Oct 39.2 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
27 Oct 38.2 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Oct 39.6 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Oct 37.0 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 50
30 Oct 38.9 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Oct 40.1 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Nov 40.0 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
2 Nov after 39.0 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 54
3 Nov after 39.1 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
4 Nov after 38.6 °C 21 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
5 Nov after 39.0 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
6 Nov after 38.7 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Nov after 39.1 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Nov after 39.1 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Nov after 36.3 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm High 38
10 Nov after 39.2 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Nov after 38.6 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Nov after 36.0 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Oct 2021
After · 8 Nov 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 · 862Every 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 October 2021 and 1 November 2021: 11 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 20,336 hectares (203.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (20,477 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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
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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.