How long did the Mareeba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 September 2024 and 24 September 2024: 6 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 17,658 hectares (176.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mareeba (17,723 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.

AU · Australia · 2024-09-19 → 2024-09-24

Mareeba fire, 19 September 2024 Mareeba

Out · last detection 25 Sept 2024, 04:44 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2024 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,658 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 368th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 117 in Australia in 2024, of 638.

Burnt area: 17,658ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 19 Sept 2024 – 24 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; local government areas
Started on: 19 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 681; in a single hotspot: 145 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 4.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Sept 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept24 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

60km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 230 ha in 2017, 1,623 ha in 2019, 8,144 ha in 2020, 2,307 ha in 2022, 1,140 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,153 ha that had burned before.

6,829 ha Mareeba fire, November 2020 81,833 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mareeba where it started

17,723 ha reached on 19 Sept

0.3 %

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)
14 Sept	32.4 °C	32 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
15 Sept	33.1 °C	28 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
16 Sept	27.9 °C	47 %	53 km/h	0.6 mm	High 34
17 Sept	28.0 °C	45 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
18 Sept	30.3 °C	36 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Sept	29.7 °C	45 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
20 Sept	34.7 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
21 Sept	35.0 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 45
22 Sept	36.1 °C	7 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
23 Sept	35.5 °C	11 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
24 Sept	34.1 °C	22 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
25 Sept after	35.2 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
26 Sept after	34.4 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
27 Sept after	35.6 °C	32 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Sept after	36.7 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
29 Sept after	36.5 °C	28 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
30 Sept after	37.0 °C	20 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
1 Oct after	36.3 °C	21 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
2 Oct after	34.1 °C	30 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
3 Oct after	33.2 °C	31 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
4 Oct after	35.1 °C	22 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
5 Oct after	34.0 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
6 Oct after	34.9 °C	23 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
7 Oct after	36.0 °C	17 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
8 Oct after	36.6 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Sept 2024

After · 1 Oct 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 21 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1056 µg/m³

Optical depth0.50

WHO 15

1718192021222324252627

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 · 681Every 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 19 September 2024 and 24 September 2024: 6 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 17,658 hectares (176.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mareeba (17,723 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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

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