Mareeba fire, 23 September 2022 Mareeba
The fire started on 23 September 2022 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,011 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 415th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 94 in Australia in 2022, of 566.
- Burnt area
- 16,011ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 23 Sept 2022 – 27 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 23 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 557
- in a single hotspot: 39 MW
- Danger at start
- 55
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.3GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,853 ha in 2016, 1,613 ha in 2017, 9,145 ha in 2019, 1,781 ha in 2020, 2,385 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,383 ha that had burned before.
- 6,012 ha Mareeba fire, August 2019 35,623 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,977 ha Mareeba fire, October 2016 6,754 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 573 ha Mareeba fire, August 2019 17,986 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 434 ha Mareeba fire, August 2019 5,230 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 25 ha Mareeba fire, October 2021 12,393 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 18 ha Mareeba fire, December 2019 30,768 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1 ha Mareeba fire, October 2016 10,374 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mareeba where it started16,092 ha reached on 22 Sept0.3 %
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 | 37.9 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 23 Sept | 38.5 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 24 Sept | 37.9 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 25 Sept | 37.7 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 26 Sept | 38.2 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 27 Sept | 38.2 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 28 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 20 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 29 Sept after | 35.7 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 30 Sept after | 36.9 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 1 Oct after | 35.5 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 2 Oct after | 35.8 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Oct after | 36.4 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 48 |
| 4 Oct after | 37.3 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 5 Oct after | 36.1 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Oct after | 38.3 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Oct after | 38.7 °C | 22 % | 43 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.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 25 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 557Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mareeba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 September 2022 and 27 September 2022: 5 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 16,011 hectares (160.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mareeba (16,092 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
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.