How long did the Mareeba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 May 2024 and 25 May 2024: 9 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 5,291 hectares (52.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mareeba (5,310 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.

AU · Australia · 2024-05-17 → 2024-05-25

Mareeba fire, May 2024 Mareeba

Out · last detection 25 May 2024, 16:00 UTC

The fire started on 17 May 2024 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,291 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 1613th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 583 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 5,291ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 17 May 2024 – 25 May 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 17 May; 2024
Heat detections: 177; in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start: 26; High · FWI index
Energy released: 423MW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 May 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 May25 May

How it evolved, day by day

171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

66km/h · peak gust

38%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,457 ha in 2017, 1,047 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,516 ha that had burned before.

1,680 ha Mareeba fire, October 2017 8,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mareeba where it started

5,310 ha reached on 17 May

0.1 %

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)
17 May	30.8 °C	44 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
18 May	29.4 °C	44 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 May	28.8 °C	38 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
20 May	27.1 °C	44 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
21 May	27.3 °C	55 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 May	27.9 °C	55 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
23 May	28.2 °C	47 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 May	28.4 °C	52 %	66 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
25 May	29.5 °C	50 %	50 km/h	0.3 mm	High 27
26 May after	28.7 °C	53 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
27 May after	27.9 °C	55 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
28 May after	29.2 °C	47 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 May after	28.4 °C	51 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
30 May after	29.5 °C	47 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
31 May after	30.7 °C	45 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
1 Jun after	30.6 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
2 Jun after	30.7 °C	40 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	High 23
3 Jun after	30.1 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
4 Jun after	31.4 °C	37 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 May 2024

After · 1 Jun 2024

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 20 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 6 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak6 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1011 µg/m³

Optical depth0.17

1516171819202122232425262728

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 · 177Every 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 17 May 2024 and 25 May 2024: 9 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 5,291 hectares (52.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mareeba (5,310 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned