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Mareeba fire, 23 October 2021 Mareeba

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2021, 03:36 UTC

The fire started on 23 October 2021 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,039 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 861th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 201 in Australia in 2021, of 460.

Burnt area
9,039ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
23 Oct 2021 – 28 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
23 Oct
2021
Heat detections
232
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Oct 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Oct28 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
46km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,074 ha in 2017, 247 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba where it started
    9,051 ha reached on 23 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
23 Oct 37.2 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
24 Oct 38.9 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Oct 38.6 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Oct 38.9 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
27 Oct 38.6 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Oct 39.0 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 Oct after 37.7 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Oct after 38.9 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Oct after 40.4 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Nov after 39.5 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 53
2 Nov after 39.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Nov after 38.9 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Nov after 38.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Nov after 38.5 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Nov after 38.8 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Nov after 39.0 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Oct 2021
After · 4 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 · 232Every 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 23 October 2021 and 28 October 2021: 6 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 9,039 hectares (90.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mareeba (9,051 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.