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Mareeba fire, 7 December 2023 Mareeba, Cook

Out · last detection 10 Dec 2023, 03:42 UTC

The fire started on 7 December 2023 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,558 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 580th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 447 in Australia in 2023, of 1235.

Burnt area
12,558ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
7 Dec 2023 – 10 Dec 2023
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
7 Dec
2023
Heat detections
353
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Dec 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Dec10 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

78910

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
35km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 12 Dec.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,149 ha in 2016, 55 ha in 2017, 3,923 ha in 2019, 1,428 ha in 2021, 538 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,276 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mareeba where it started
    11,777 ha reached on 7 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Cook
    800 ha reached on 7 Dec
    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 Rain Danger (FWI)
7 Dec 37.0 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
8 Dec 36.7 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
9 Dec 37.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Dec 37.9 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
11 Dec after 37.5 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
12 Dec after 37.6 °C 38 % 31 km/h 2.3 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Nov 2023
After · 17 Dec 2023

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 8 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1045 µg/m³
Optical depth0.58
5678910111213
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 · 353Every 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 7 December 2023 and 10 December 2023: 4 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 12,558 hectares (125.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mareeba (11,777 ha, 0.2 %); Cook (800 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class 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
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.