How long did the Mareeba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2023 and 25 August 2023: 14 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 31,215 hectares (312.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (28,735 ha, 0.5 %); Cook (2,588 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

AU · Australia · 2023-08-12 → 2023-08-25

Mareeba fire, August 2023 Mareeba, Cook

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2023, 03:49 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2023 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 31,215 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 177th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 165 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area: 31,215ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 12 Aug 2023 – 25 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 12 Aug; 2023
Heat detections: 1,104; in a single hotspot: 142 MW
Danger at start: 32; High · FWI index
Energy released: 7.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Aug 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

64km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13 ha in 2016, 2,487 ha in 2017, 7,203 ha in 2018, 852 ha in 2019, 2,994 ha in 2020, 2,693 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,058 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mareeba where it started

28,735 ha reached on 11 Aug

0.5 %
Cook

2,588 ha reached on 16 Aug

0.0 %

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	Danger (FWI)
11 Aug	25.9 °C	37 %	52 km/h	High 32
12 Aug	26.0 °C	44 %	46 km/h	High 30
13 Aug	27.8 °C	27 %	37 km/h	High 31
14 Aug	29.5 °C	26 %	27 km/h	High 32
15 Aug	29.6 °C	23 %	32 km/h	High 35
16 Aug	28.5 °C	24 %	38 km/h	High 37
17 Aug	30.1 °C	19 %	35 km/h	Very high 39
18 Aug	30.4 °C	23 %	20 km/h	High 34
19 Aug	29.6 °C	28 %	41 km/h	Very high 40
20 Aug	26.9 °C	34 %	46 km/h	Very high 38
21 Aug	26.8 °C	42 %	53 km/h	High 38
22 Aug	28.5 °C	36 %	42 km/h	High 32
23 Aug	28.0 °C	39 %	50 km/h	High 34
24 Aug	28.7 °C	34 %	53 km/h	High 37
25 Aug	27.1 °C	42 %	64 km/h	High 38
26 Aug after	25.3 °C	48 %	60 km/h	High 36
27 Aug after	27.0 °C	40 %	59 km/h	High 36
28 Aug after	26.9 °C	42 %	58 km/h	High 34
29 Aug after	28.6 °C	31 %	44 km/h	High 34
30 Aug after	29.3 °C	26 %	38 km/h	High 37
31 Aug after	30.3 °C	21 %	22 km/h	High 33
1 Sept after	30.4 °C	21 %	20 km/h	High 34
2 Sept after	29.9 °C	22 %	41 km/h	Very high 44
3 Sept after	28.3 °C	31 %	46 km/h	Very high 42
4 Sept after	30.7 °C	25 %	35 km/h	High 38

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Aug 2023

After · 1 Sept 2023

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 18 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1028 µg/m³

Optical depth0.35

WHO 15

10111213141516171819202122232425262728

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 1,104Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mareeba fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2023 and 25 August 2023: 14 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 31,215 hectares (312.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (28,735 ha, 0.5 %); Cook (2,588 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned