Mareeba fire, October 2024 Mareeba
The fire started on 25 October 2024 in Mareeba, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 26,457 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 215th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 68 in Australia in 2024, of 638.
- Burnt area
- 26,457ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 25 Oct 2024 – 29 Oct 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 25 Oct
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 762
- in a single hotspot: 177 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 10.9GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,152 ha in 2016, 2,025 ha in 2017, 6,961 ha in 2019, 14,066 ha in 2021, 23 ha in 2022, 883 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 20,510 ha that had burned before.
- 10,786 ha Mareeba fire, October 2021 44,865 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,816 ha Mareeba fire, November 2016 6,165 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,704 ha Mareeba fire, December 2019 5,666 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 883 ha Mareeba fire, November 2023 7,676 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 231 ha Mareeba fire, December 2019 30,768 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mareeba where it started26,652 ha reached on 25 Oct0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Oct | 40.3 °C | 16 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Oct | 39.2 °C | 19 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 27 Oct | 39.5 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 28 Oct | 39.7 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 29 Oct | 39.1 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 30 Oct after | 37.9 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 31 Oct after | 37.5 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 1 Nov after | 34.1 °C | 34 % | 29 km/h | 2.5 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 2 Nov after | 37.5 °C | 21 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 Nov after | 39.3 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 4 Nov after | 39.6 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 5 Nov after | 40.0 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 6 Nov after | 38.9 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 7 Nov after | 39.1 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 8 Nov after | 39.3 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 9 Nov after | 39.8 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 10 Nov after | 39.6 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 11 Nov after | 39.8 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 12 Nov after | 39.4 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 29 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 762Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mareeba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 October 2024 and 29 October 2024: 5 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 26,457 hectares (264.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mareeba (26,652 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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
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
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.