How long did the Mareeba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 June 2024 and 13 June 2024: 10 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 8,631 hectares (86.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mareeba (8,683 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 · 2024-06-04 → 2024-06-13

Mareeba fire, 4 June 2024 Mareeba

Out · last detection 13 Jun 2024, 03:53 UTC

The fire started on 4 June 2024 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,631 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 909th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 305 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 8,631ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 4 Jun 2024 – 13 Jun 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 4 Jun; 2024
Heat detections: 286; in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start: 26; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Jun 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jun13 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213

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

35km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,600 ha in 2016, 5,064 ha in 2018, 137 ha in 2020, 1,210 ha in 2021, 602 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,836 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mareeba where it started

8,683 ha reached on 5 Jun

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)
4 Jun	28.2 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Jun	26.7 °C	34 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Jun	25.9 °C	41 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
7 Jun	25.7 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
8 Jun	26.2 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
9 Jun	26.7 °C	24 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
10 Jun	27.1 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Jun	28.3 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 Jun	29.7 °C	24 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
13 Jun	30.1 °C	16 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
14 Jun after	28.3 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
15 Jun after	29.4 °C	23 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
16 Jun after	29.5 °C	18 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Jun after	28.0 °C	20 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
18 Jun after	26.6 °C	26 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
19 Jun after	26.9 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Jun after	26.7 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Jun after	27.0 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Jun after	24.0 °C	52 %	46 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
23 Jun after	28.0 °C	38 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
24 Jun after	26.3 °C	43 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
25 Jun after	27.1 °C	56 %	42 km/h	0.5 mm	High 26
26 Jun after	28.2 °C	57 %	40 km/h	0.5 mm	High 26
27 Jun after	28.1 °C	58 %	36 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 20
28 Jun after	29.5 °C	45 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 Jun after	29.3 °C	41 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 May 2024

After · 20 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 15 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1035 µg/m³

Optical depth0.27

WHO 15

2345678910111213141516

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 · 286Every 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 4 June 2024 and 13 June 2024: 10 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 8,631 hectares (86.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mareeba (8,683 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

Report an error

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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